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THE 



LIFE AND PUBLIC CAREER 



HON. HORACE GREELEY. 



BY 

i WILLIAM M:^ CORNELL, LL.D., 



AUTHOR OF "life OF ROBERT RAIKKS," ETC. 



BOSTON : 
PUBLISHED BY LEE AND SHEPARD. 

NEW YORK: LEE, SHEPARD, & DILLINGHAM. 
PHILADELPHIA : H. C. JOHNSON. 

1872. 



^ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S72, 

By WILLIAM M. CORNELL, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



Boston : 
Hand, Avery, &* Co. Stereotypers and Printers. 



TO 

EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN 

IN OUR COUNTRY, 

WHERE HONOR, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS DEPEND ON HIS OWN 

INTEGRITY, HONESTY, AND ECONOMY, 

AND WHERE 

EVERY ONE MAY ATTAIN TO THE HIGHEST HONOR OF THE NATION, 

K\}is ILtfe anU (fTarccr 

OF A SELF-MADE, INDUSTRIOUS, ECONOMICAL, AND 



HONEST MAN 



IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 



The Author. 



PKEFACE. 



HORACE GREELEY has bad nothing to do with getting 
up, writing, or publishing this book, lie has neither writ- 
ten nor seen a sentence of it in its original manuscript, nor in the 
proof-sheets, nor in any other way. He knows nothing about 
what it contaius, and therefore is in no way or manner responsi- 
ble for its statements. 

ITie public has a right to know all that can be known of any 
public man, and especially of any one who is presented for their 
suffrage. It is for this purpose, to give this information (now 
that Mr. Greeley has been nominated for the highest office in the 
gift of this great nation), that the following facts and incidents of 
his life are here presented. They have been gathered from the 
most authentic and reliable sources, and speak for themselves. 
They show the man as he has been, when a poor boy, an appren- 
tice, a journeyman, an editor, a public man, — just what he was 
in all the positions he has held before he was a candidate for 
the presidency. This is all the writer has desired or designed to 
do, — to show the people just who Horace Greeley is, what he has 
been, and what he has done. Having done this, according to the 
ability given the writer, he leaves him and his doings in the 
hands of an appreciating public. 

1* 5 



6 PEEFACB. 

The compiler here, once for all, acknowledges his indebtedness 
to Mr. Greeley's " Recollections of a Busy Life," from his own 
pen, published first in "The New- York Ledger" from time to 
time, and also in a book by J. B. Ford & Co. ; also to " The Life 
of Mr. Greeley " by Mr. James Parton, published by James R. 
Osgood & Co. of Boston. 



INTRODUCTION. 



USE OF BIOGRAPHY. 

BIOGRAPHICAL sketches of great and good men have 
always been useful in the world. Indeed, no class of writ- 
ings have had such vast influence in forming the character of the 
young, either for weal or woe, as these. Conquerors have been 
made by reading the lives of 'conquerors that have preceded 
them ; heroes, by reading of heroes ; and martyrs, clergymen, 
eminent business-men, and persons in all professions, have been 
inspired with that supreme devotion and energy to an object that 
has enabled them to overcome all obstacles, and achieve the 
same as, or even more than, those after whom they patterned. 

Thus presidents of the United States have already been 
elevated to that high position by letting the people know who 
they were, what they had done, and their capacity for such an 
office. In this way our excellent Lincoln and our General Grant 
were ushered into a more elevated position than that of kings, 
because borne thither by a free and enlightened people. 

The Creator, the Fountain of all good, seems to have acted 
upon this principle in giving us the Bible ; in which he has set 
before us, for our imitation, the character of Abraham, Moses, 
David, Daniel, and many other holy men among the Old-Testa- 

7 



8 INTEODITCTION. 

ment worthies. And we know indeed, from the New Testa- 
ment, that the grand object had in view by the Holy One, in 
portraying their characters, was for our imitation. Hence we are 
expressly told, " "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were 
written for our learning, that we through patience, and comfort of 
the scriptures, might have hope." Hence the writer to the He- 
brews brings before us that host of " worthies," till the number 
seems to swell beyond his powers of description ; and he exclaims, 
"And what shall I more say? for the time would fail." All these 
were named, with their heroic deeds, for what ? — " Seeing we 
also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let 
us run with patience the race that is set before us." In other 
words, seeing, knowing, what others have done, taking them as our 
examples, let us discharge our duty as they did ; let us " press 
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling." Deeply 
imbued with this principle of rising, of coming up to the highest 
round of the ladder of human perfectibility. Dr. Young said, — 

" All can do what Las by man been done." 



OONTEN"TS. 



CHAPTER I. 
THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 



PAGE. 

Their Peculiarities. — Londonderry settled by Them. — Their Industry. — 
Their Diet. — Anecdotes of their Ministers. — The New-England Meet- 
ing-Houses 13 



CHAPTER II. 

PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 

The Name Greeley. — His Ancestors. — The Woodburn Family. — Horace 
supposed to be Dead. — An Early Reader. — His First School. — New- 
England Schoolhouses then.— School-Books.— His First Piece.— Al- 
ways did his " Stint." — No Sportsman . 

CHAPTER III. 

HORACE REMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

Horace's Father loses his Property. — The Old Greek Law. — Great Sacri- 
fice. — Moves to West Haven, Vt. — Horace's Dress. — At School he aids 
the Other Scholars. — A Checker-Player. — He scours the Country for 
Books. — Visits his Friends in Londonderry. — Taken for an Idiot. — His 
Teetotalism. — He begins to be a Politician. — His Description of it later 
in Life 

CHAPTER IV. 

HORACE BECOMES AN APPRENTICE. 

Horace visits Poultney. — His Description by Mr. Bliss. — He is a Match 
for the School-committee Man. — He is employed. — What the Other 
Printers in the Office think of bini. — Horace in the Lyceum. — He 
boards at the Tavern, but won't drink. — What a New- York Physician 
said of him. — Anti-Masonry of that Time 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

HORACE TRAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 

Mr. Greeley moves to Penn"ylvania. — He leaves Vermont. — Visits his 
Father's Log-Cabin. — Visits Jamestown for Work. — Next goes to 
Erie — His Amusing Reception. — Goes to Work. — A Lady's Opii)ion 
of him. — He leaves Erie. —His Arrival in New York. — His finding a 
Boarding-House. — Gets into an Office. — Mr. We.«t's Opinion of him. — 
His Success as a Typo. — Works on " The Spirit of the Times." — Visits 
New Hampshire. — A Good Dinner 61 

CHAPTER VI. 

GREELEY COMMENCES BUSINESS. 

Horace in the "Watch-House." — Greeley driven to New York. — "The 
Morning Post" fails. —He appeals in Vain to his Subscribers to pay. 

— His Honesty and Integrity. — His Editorial Luxuries. — Interview 
•with the Wrathy Quack. — Horace's Poetry. — "The New-Yorker." — 
" The JeflPersonian." — "The Log-Cabin." — His Marriage. — His Wed- 
ding-Tour. —He cuts up Fashions and Opinions. — Hia Activity iu the 
Campaign of 1840. — He asked for no Office 74 

CHAPTER VH. 

HORACE GREELEY'S TEMPERANCE. 

Horace will not drink. — Aids in forming a Temperance Society. — His 
Opinion of Cider-Guzzling. — Liquor used by Everybody. — Why Cities 
always go for Liquor-Selling. — Tiie Man in whom an Iceberg formed. 

— Horace foreshadows a Prohibitory Law. — Sylvester Graham. — Died 
of Chagrin. — Mr. Greeley's Graham'ism. — Finds his Wife at the Graham 
Boarding-House.- On the Whole, he thinks favorably of eating more 
Fruit, and less Meat 104 

CHAPTER VHI. 

MR. GREELEY AND "THE TRIBUNE." 

Mr. Greeley had tried his Fortune with Several Journals. — He starts " The 
Tribune" Alone. — Takes a Partner. — Their Adaptedness to Each 
Other. — "The Tribune" a Success. — " Fanny Fern's" Adventure to 
get a Copy. — "The Tribune" a Whig Paper. — It attacks the New- 
York City Government; also the Theatre-Goers. — Is pounced upon by 
the Other Papers — Mr. Greeley justifies his Course towards John 
Tyler. — He tells what he wanted "The Tribune" to be from the first. — 
How Candidates for Public Favor are used 118 



CHAPTER IX. 

"THE TRIBUNE" CONTINUED. 

The Tribune" changed to a Two-cent Paper.- A Mob in New York. — 
Mr. Greeley's First Visit to Washington. — His Letter from Mount Ver- 
non. — From Saratoga. — Margaret Puller and Mr. Greeley. — Mr. Gree- 
ley's Opinion of John Tyler. — Burning of "The Tribune" Building.— 
Mr. Greeley's Description of it afterwards 133 



CONTENTS. 11 



CHAPTER X. 

MR. GREELEY IN" POLITICS. 

Mr. Greeley a Politician from his Youth. — A Great Friend of the United- 
States Bank. — A Friend of William H. Seward. — Opposed to Gen. 
Jackson. — Greeley in the Harrison Campaign. — Deep in Politics . . 148 

CHAPTER XI. 

MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 

Elected to Congress. — Attacks the Mileage Fraud. — Mr. Greeley accused 
of Inconsistency. — His Explanation. — His Reports to "The Tribune" 
attacked. — He introduces the Mileage Bill. — Sticks to his Opinion of 
Gen. Taylor's Nomination. — Address to his Constituents. — Our Object 
not to extol him, but to tell what he has done. — Quotation from Mr. 
Greeley's Whig Almanac. — His Effort to save Money. —Mr. Turner's 
Resolutions. — Mr. Greeley's Reply.— Mr. Greeley not a Dead-Head. 

— Facetious Discussion on the Mileage Question. — Second Address to 

his Constituents 164 

CHAPTER Xn. 
MR. GREELEY AND HIS BEGGARS AND BORROWERS. 

New York and Beggars. — A Few of the Sufferers. — Begging for Churches. 

— Chronic Beggars. — Borrowers. — Not to injure the Needy. — A Case 
stated.- Borrowers of Strangers never pay. — A Beggar's Letter. — 
Church-Members Begging or Borrowing. — Associations can deal with 
Beggars better than Individuals can. — Does not condemn Borrowing 
wholly. — A Duty to lend sometimes. — Remarks 198 

CHAPTER Xni. 
MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 



Mr 



. Greeley discussed Many Subjects. — The Rochester Rappings. — He 
didn't desire a Second Sitting. — Interview with Jenny Lind. — Seance 
at Mr. Greeley's House. — He witnesses a Juggle or Trick. — He deals 
with theTrick. — He thinks the Devil would not be engaged in such 
Business.- Found he could spend his Time more Profitably. — Thinks 
we had better do our Duty to the Living. — Thinks Great Men wrote 
Better while living than since they died.— Their Communications 
Vague and Trivial. — Spirits proved to be Ignorant. — The Great Body 
of Spiritualists made Worse by it. — Spiritualists are Bigots . . .212 



CHAPTER XIV. 

LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 

These Suits Numerous.- J. Fenimore Cooper's Character valued at Two 
Hundred Dollars.- His Nephew and himself the Lawyers. — Horace his 
own Lawyer. — Horace not allowed to plead his own Case and to have 
Counsel; but Cooper is allowed to. — Injustice and Absurdity of the 



12 CONTENTS. 



Law of Libel In the State of New York. — The Whig Editors only 

Eroeecuted. — Editors do not claim Immunity to Libels. — Mr. Greeley's 
lOgic. — Base Fellows. — New- York Laws Worse than English. The 
Greater the Truth stated, the Greater the Libel. — Mr. Greeley did 
Much for the Press in this Case. — Wonderful Rapidity of Writing. — 
The Judge's Charge Worse than Cooper's Plea. — Mr. Greeley gives a 
most Humorous Turn to this Whole Libel-Business. — His Defence re- 
sulted in Good 



CHAPTER XV. 

MR. GREELEY'S VISITS TO EUROPE. 

Hi8 First Visit in 1851.— At the World's Fair of that Year, he is made 
Chairman of one of the Juries. He delivers the Address to the Con- 
Btructor of the Palace. — His Second Visit to the Old World. — He is 
arrested in Paris for Debt, and imprisoned 260 



CHAPTER XVI. 

HORACE GREELEY'S VARIETY OF CHARACTERS. 

Mr. Greeley's Views of Working-Men. — Mr. Greeley as a Lecturer. — Mr. 
Greeley an Author. — The Work published — Addresses and Essays. — 
All for the Working-Men. — Mr. Greeley as a Man of Letters.— The 
Great Trees of Mariposa. — His Honesty. — " The Tribune " an Educa- 
tor. — An Editor to speak reproachfully of Horace Greeley — what is 
he ? — What Whittier, the Quaker-Poet, said. — How much it implies. — 
" He who would strike Horace Greeley would strike his Mother." — Tes- 
timony of Rev. Dr. Bellows; of W. E. Robinson; of the Poet Whittier. 
— Remarks on Mr. Greeley s Letter of Acceptance of the Cincinnati 
Nomination.— On his Di-ess. — Of his Inconsistency. — Proposal to buy 
the Slaves.- Signing Jeff. Davis's Bail. — Comparison between Abra- 
ham Lincoln and Horace Greeley in their Chiklh^od and Youth: both 
Poor; both Readers; both loved by their l<"ellows; both excelled their 
Teachers 



SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF B. GRATZ BROWN .... 307 



LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 

Their Peculiarities. — Londonderry settled by Them. — Their Industry. — 
Their Diet. —Anecdotes of their Ministers. — The New-England Meet- 
ing-Houses. 

THESE have ever been, and still are, " a peculiar 
people. '^ Those who early settled New Hamp- 
shire, where Horace Greeley was born, were of this 
peculiar cast. They came from Ulster, in the 
northern part of Ireland (from which a very large 
number of our eminent men and " merchant princes " 
have come). They were of that blood which will tell 
wherever it is found. One of the six counties of this 
northern province of the " Emerald Isle " was London- 
derry. The inhabitants were intensely Protestant, 
and generally Presbyterian. They were brave men ; 
and, when that city was besieged, they defended it 
against a besieging army till they slew nine thousand 

2 13 



14 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELjgY. 

of them, until three thousand of their own number 
had fallen, till they \7ere reduced to such a state of 
starvation that a quarter of a dog was sold for five 
shillings and sixpence, and till horse-flesh brought 
one and sixpence a pound, a rat one shilling, and a 
mouse sixpence. Still they would not and did not 
surrender. May it not have been well said, then, 
that Presbyterians are a set and stiff people ? Every 
one knows what they are on the Scotch side, which 
makes half of their name : " for it behooveth a Scots- 
man to be right ; for, if he be wrong, he is forever and 
eternally wrong." 

It was by this class of people that London- 
derry, N.H., was chiefly settled. The first of these 
emigrants came in 1718 ; and a few of them stopped 
for a time in Boston, and founded the church to 
which Rev. Dr. Channing and the late Dr. Gannett 
preached, and for which Rev. Dr. Blaikie, of similar 
blood, has long been contending. But the greater 
part of them went directly to Londonderry, and to 
other towns in Rockingham County, N.H. ; and the 
others from Boston soon followed them. 

There they lived as brethren and neighbors, — an 
industrious, hard-working people, willing to earn their 
living, and carrying out the declaration of the Bible 
(which was about all the book they had), — "-'If any 
■^^ould not work, neither should he eat." 



THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 15 

Their industry was so remarkable, that they brought 
their spinning and weaving implements with them 
from their native land. They raised much flax, and 
made the first linen ever manufactured in New Eng- 
land. 

Though the potato was of American origin, yet it 
was never cultivated to any considerable extent here 
till this colony did it ; and it has ever been a current 
report, that a farmer in the vicinity of Londonderry 
attempted to boil and eat the balls from the potato- 
tops, instead of the potato itself, but, upon making 
the trial, declared them to be worthless. This well- 
authenticated item makes a good offset to the farmer 
who boiled the tea for greens, and also declared it 
" of no value." 

They were so frugal and economical, that they used 
to walk barefooted, carrying their shoes and stockings 
in their hands till coming near the church or to 
where they were bound, when they put them on : and 
one old bachelor was said to be so neat, that when he 
arrived at the " meeting-house, if his shoes were 
dusty, he wiped them with his white pocket-handker- 
chief.'' 

They did not use tea or coffee till about the year 
1800. Borrowing and lending were very common 
among them ; though buying and selling were almost 
unknown. If they killed a calf or a pig, it was 



16 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

usually lent out to the neighbors, to be repaid wheu 
they did a like deed. Women did their full share of 
the work both in the house and on the farm. They 
were a strong, long-lived race, and generally reared 
large families. 

Though they were, as we have stated, a rigid race 
of religious men and women, yet they were full of 
glee and mirth ; and though they always read the 
Bible morning and evening with family prayer, and 
though the Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism 
was their solemn creed, which all their children were 
compelled to learn, yet no people were ever more full 
of fun than these stiff Presbyterians. 

The Rev. Mr. Morrison — a Presbyterian name 
among them to this day, and one of their lineal 
descendants — says, " A prominent trait in the 
character of the Scotch-Irish was their wit. No 
subject was kept sacred from it. The thoughtless, 
the grave, the old, and the young, alike enjoyed it. 
Our fathers were serious, thoughtful men ; but they 
lost no occasion that might promise sport. Weddings, 
huskings, log-rollings, and raisings, — what a host of 
queer stories" is connected with them ! Our ancestors 
dearly loved fun. There was a grotesque humor, and 
yet a seriousness, pathos, and strangeness, about them, 
which, in its way, has, perhaps, never been equalled. 
It was the sternness of the Scotch covenanter, softened 



THE SCOTCH-miSH. 17 

by a century's residence abroad amid persecution and 
trial, wedded to the comic humor and pathos of the 
Irish, and then grown wild in the woods among their 
own New-England mountains." 

Many quaint anecdotes are told of their clergy, 
while they were the strictest sect of religionists in the 
world. Thus it is related that a British officer, during 
the " old French war," one Sunday morning entered 
the meeting-house in Londonderry in such a shining 
uniform, that he attracted the attention of the young 
misses, standing as he did in a conspicuous place, far 
more than the solemn sermon of the good old parson, 
Rev. Matthew Clark. The old man bore it as long as 
he could ; but perceiving that he was not inclined to 
be seated, and that so much attention was given to his 
superb dress, at length he stopped, laid by his sermon, 
and, addressing the officer, said, " Ye're a braw 
(brave) lad ; ye hae a braw suit of claithes, and we 
hae a' seen them : ye may sit down." As though 
suddenly shot, the officer dropped into a seat. 

Rev. E. L. Parker, in his history of Londonderry, 
gives the following specimen of William Clark's 
pulpit peculiarities. His subject was Peter's assur- 
ance that he would not deny his Master. " Just like 
Peter, aye mair forrit (forward) than wise, ganging 
swaggering aboot wi' a sword at his side : an' a puir 
ban' he mad' o' it when he cam' to the trial ; for he 

2* 



18 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

only cut off un cliiel's lug (ear), avC he ought to hae 
split down his head.'*^ 

We are told (we have referred to their strictness 
in family religion) that the first minister of London- 
derry, upon hearing that one of his flock was neg- 
lecting family worship, repaired to his dwelling the 
same evening that he learned the sad news. It was 
late, and the family had retired : but he roused up 
the head of the family ; asked him if the report he 
had heard was true, and if he had omitted family 
prayer that evening. The man said he had. Then 
he made him call up his wife and perform with her 
the neglected duty before he would leave the house. 

They were a singularly honest people ; and this may 
in some measure account for the fact, that now, while 
the opponents say all manner of cruel things about 
Horace Greeley, they all say he is honest. They had a 
law, if a man found any thing on the road, he should 
leave it at the next tavern. In 1774, one John Mor- 
rison found an axe, and did not leave it at the next 
tavern, nor make proclamation, as the law directed. 
The session convicted him ; though John contended 
that the axe was of so small value, that it would not 
pay the expense of proclaiming, &c. So he stands 
there recorded on the town-record of 1774. 

A volume might be filled with the singular anec- 
dotes of this " peculiar people ; " but it is not required 



THE SCOTCH-IRISH. 19 

for our present purpose. We add simply a sketch of 
the old, uncouth churches of New England such as 
Horace Greeley was compelled to attend in his child- 
hood : of these New Hampshire had its full share : — 

" Of these we have a distinct recollection : we 
mean tliose erected by the Puritans and their Presby- 
terian brethren. They were queer, uncouth things, 
having the large door in the side, and one at each end 
for ingress and egress. The aisles were wide ; the 
pews high, nearly square, with a seat on every side, 
and a low one for the small children ; a table for the 
man, then the head of the family, upon which to lay 
his psalm-book. The consequence was, that a part of 
the audience had to sit with their backs to the minis- 
ter ; and, when the psalm-singing ceased, there was a 
clattering of letting down tables like the slamming 
of fifty doors. A gallery all round the inside of the 
house accommodated the boys and girls with a con- 
venient resting-place, where they could whittle, whis- 
per, pull each other's ears or hair, or behave decently, 
as they preferred ; but when Deacon S., the ti thing- 
man, was in his place, most of them did the latter, 
lest they should get a switch from his birch. 

" These ' meeting-houses ' had an abundance of 
windows, tier above tier, to let in the light of heaven 
unstained; for blinds, curtains, and ' painted glass,' 
were then among the things that were not : all this 



20 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

showing manifestly tliat the worshippers ' loved light 
rather than darkness.' 

" There was no provision made for warming these 
liouses, save only as some old ladies carried foot- 
stoves, made of tin, and hooped round with wood, 
with a tin dish or saucer to hold live coals of liickory 
or oak (for good wood was then plenty) ; and these 
good old dames thus warmed their feet and those of 
the small children by placing them over these tin 
boxes, which had holes in their tops through which the 
heat ascended. Stoves then, for burning Lehigh and 
Lackawana, were not : indeed, these very heat-pro- 
ducing articles themselves had never been heard of. 
But the people were healthy ; and though cold, and 
often chilled, we heard of but few cases of bronchitis 
or throat-diseases as at present. 

" When a lad, we have sat with our feet almost 
frozen, watching the old minister, who had officiated 
in the same desk forty years, as he turned over leaf 
after leaf of his manuscript, hoping (often almost 
against hope) that each would be the last. But what 
seems remarkable to us at the present time is, that no 
one staid away from the meeting (the name of church 
was then unknown, only as referring to the body of 
professors) on account of the cold ; and none were 
made sick by sitting two hours in a house built of 
wood, and not very tight, with the temperature (if we 



THE SCOTCH-IEISH. 21 

had possessed any thing to have measured it with ; 
which we did not, thermometers then being unknown, 
or at least unused in tlie country) ten or twenty 
degrees below zero. There was not half the consump- 
tion then that there is now. May it not be justly in- 
ferred, if we heated our churches now, and our dwell- 
ings too, as we did then, that consumption would be 
diminished one-half? Our present mode of heating 
must be changed. 

" We could give some curious anecdotes of the wars 
of those days — like those between the ' red and the 
white roses ' — which prevailed between deacons, 
deacons' wives, and ' men of standing,' in families, 
when the question of putting in stoves came to be 
discussed. Then those terrible ' tempests in tea- 
pots,' as well as among tea and spirit drinkers ; for all 
ministers, deacons, and others drank spirit in those 
days, and all women (whose husbands could afford it) 
drank tea. We remember one case where Mrs. Dea- 
con S. had fought against a stove, and Mrs. Deacon 
B. for one ; till finally, when Mrs. Deacon B.'s party 
prevailed, Mrs. Deacon S. was carried out faint, and, 
when she recovered, said that it was that terribly' hot 
stove that caused it ; but, though the stove was there, 
no fire had been made in it. 

" The Old South Church and the Rev. Dr. Put- 
nam's, we believe, are the only houses of worship, built 



22 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 

after that antique fashion, now left. The Brattle- 
square and the Stone Chapel approximate that 
form ; and how they came to escape a perfect simi- 
larity to them, built in the same age, is more than 
we can tell. Thus nearly all these old edifices have 
disappeared from New England ; and others, many of 
which are no improvement upon their predecessors, 
have taken their places." 

It was in one of these " unsteepled houses," as 
William Penn called his " Quaker churches," that 
the ancestors of Horace Greeley heard the first pastor ! 
of Londonderry — Rev. James McGregor — preach, i 
and say the curious things above cited ; and also the 
following : " ' I can do all things.' Ay, can ye, Paul ? 
I'll bet ye a dollar o' that " (placing the dollar on the 
desk). " But stop: let's see what else Paul says: ' I 
can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth 
me.* Ay, sae can I, Paul : I draw my bet." And he 
returned the dollar to his pocket. 



CHAPTER II, 



The Name Greeley. — His Ancestors. — The Woodburn Family. — Horace 
supposed to be Dead. — An Early Reader. — His First School. — New- 
( England Schoolhouses then. — School-Books. — His First Piece. — Al- 

.- ways did his " Stint." — No Sportsman. 

AS was the case with nearly all who emigrated 
to New England in those early days, so it was 
with the ancestors of Horace Greeley, — " three broth- 
ers " first came over. The name has been variously 
spelled, like many others, — sometimes Greeley, then 
Greely, Greale, Greele ; but they seem to have all 
sprung from the same stock. One of these brothers 
is said to have settled in Maine, another in Rhode 
Island, and the other in Massachusetts. Horace 
Greeley descended from the one who settled in 
Massachusetts. His name is said to have been Benja- 
min, and that he resided in Haverhill ; was a farmer ; 
and died at a good old age, much respected. He left 
a son named Ezekiel, who was a prosperous man, and 
went by the name of " Old Captain Ezekiel." He 

23 



24 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

lived ill Hudson, N.H. He was a stern-looking old 
fellow, dark as an Indian, and somewhat like one in 
temper. He never loved work, and never did much, 
but lived by his wits ; and it is said " he got all he 
could, and saved all he got." He was a Baptist, 
and a very " hard-shelled " one, we judge ; for he was 
called " a cross old dog," " a hard old knot," and yet 
was praised because he was rich and smart. 

This Benjamin was the father of Zaccheus Greeley : 
and 

" The boy had virtue by his mother's side ; " 

though he, like his father, was not " too fond of 
work." He was famous for his knowledge of the 
Bible, and was a kind man, of gentle demeanor, and, 
though not as rich as his father, was called ^' fore- 
handed" in the world. Though his father was what 
we have seen, yet his son lived to be ninety-five ; and 
the testimony of his neighbors was, '^ A worthier man 
than Zaccheus Greeley never lived." He also had a 
son named Zaccheus, who was the father of Horace 
Greeley. 

Horace Greeley, in his " Recollections of a Busy 
Life," says, " My grandfather Greeley was a most 
excellent, though never a thrifty citizen. Kind, mild, 
easy-going, honest, and unambitious, he married 
young, and reared a family of thirteen children, — 
nine sons and four daughters. 



PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 25 

" My own great-grandfather (named Zaccheus, as 
was his son my grandfather, and his son my father) 
lived in or near the verge of Londonderry, in what 
was in my youth Nottingham West, and is now 
Hudson, across the Merrimack. 

" I never heard of a Woodburn of our stock who 
was not a farmer. My father — married at twenty-five 
to Mary Woodburn, aged nineteen — went first to 
live with his father, whose farm he was to work and 
inherit, supporting the old folks and their still nu- 
merous minor children ; but he soon tired of this, 
and seceded, migrating to and purchasing the farm 
whereon six of his seven children were born.'' 

Mr. Greeley adds (and this was published in 1869), 
*' The present township of Londonderry embraces but 
a fraction of the original town, whose hundred and 
forty-four square miles have been sliced away to 
form the several townships of Derry, Windham, and 
parts of others, until it now probably contains less 
than forty square miles. Its people nearly all live by 
farming, and own the land they cultivate. Three- 
fourths of them were born where they live, and 
there expect to die. Some families of English lineage 
have gradually taken root among them ; but they are 
still mainly of the original Scotch-Irish stock, and 
even Celtic or German " help " is scarcely known to 
them. Simple, moral, diligent, God-fearing, the vices 



26 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

of modern civilization have scarcely penetrated their 
quiet homes ; and while those who with pride trace 
their origin to the old settlement are numbered by- 
thousands, and scattered all over our broad land, I 
doubt whether the present population of London- 
derry exceeds in number that which tilled her fields, 
and hunted through her woods, fifty or sixty years 
ago." 

The Woodburn family also came from London- 
derry: so that Horace was Scotch-Irish in both his 
paternal and maternal descent, " as Paul was a 
Hebrew of the Hebrews." He has borne the follow- 
ing testimony to his great-grandmother Woodburn : 
" I think I am indebted for my first impulse toward 
intellectual acquirement and exertion to my mother's 
grandmother, who came out from Ireland among the 
first settlers of Londonderry. She must have been 
well versed in Irish and Scotch traditions, pretty well 
informed, and strong-minded ; and, my mother being 
left motherless when quite young, her grandmother 
exerted great influence over her mental development. 
I was a third child, the two preceding having died 
young ; and I presume my mother was the more 
attached to me on that ground, and the extreme 
feebleness of my constitution. My mind was early 
filled by her witli the traditions, ballads, and snatches 
of history, she had learned from her grandmother, 



PAEENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 27 

which, though conveying very distorted and incorrect 
ideas of history, yet served to awaken in me a thirst 
for knowledge, and a lively interest in learning and 
history." 

The father of Horace soon became tired of farming, 
as we have before stated, and removed to Amherst, 
N.H., and, with his saved earnings, bought a farm. 
In Amherst Horace Greeley was born on the 3d of 
February, 1811. Like many other children who have 
become eminent men, he was supposed to be dead. 
He did not breathe ; and one who was present at his 
birth says, " He was as black as a chimney." But He 
who sees the end from the beginning had work for 
this apparently dead child to do. He foresaw " The 
New-York Tribune " to come from him, and possibly 
the presidency of the United States to come to him. 

Amherst, the birthplace of this apparently lifeless 
child, is a beautiful town of Hillsborough County, 
N.H., just across the line from Massachusetts. In 
due time he received the name of Horace, after a 
little deceased brother. The father had had a relative 
by the same name ; and the mother had read it in a 
book, and liked it. The farm owned by Zaccheus, 
the father of Horace, was a rock-bound one, of the 
Granite State : it could be tilled only by hard toil. 

Horace was a bright boy, and took readily to learn- 
ing. He was first taught by his mother. She was a 



28 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

strong, athletic woman, of great activity and vivacity. 
She could laugh and sing from night to morning, and 
from morning to night. Horace listened to her 
stories with intense delight. He says in his " Recol- 
lections," " I learned to read at her knee ; of course, 
longer ago than I can remember : but I can faintly 
recollect her sitting spinning at her ' little wheel,' 
with the book in her lap whence I was taking my 
daily lesson ; and thus I soon acquired the facility of 
reading from a book sidewise or upside-down as 
readily as in the usual fashion, — a knack which I did 
not at first suppose peculiar, but which, being at length 
observed, became a subject of neighborhood wonder 
and fabulous exaggeration." 

At the age of three years he spent his first winter 
at his grandfather Woodburn's, and attended his first 
public school ; which, indeed, was all the kind of 
school he ever attended. 

Two peas were never more alike than the New- 
England country schoolliouses of those days ; so, that 
the following description applies to them, one and 
all : — 

" The early settlement of this part of our country 
is well known to have been Puritanical; and the 
Scotch-Irish of those days were emphatically so. 
They early took measures to establish ' free schools,' 
that * learning might not be buried in the graves of 



PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 29 

the fathers.' These schools, sixty years since, were 
peculiar. The old schoolhouse, situated in a corner 
of the town, at a crossing where three ways met, was 
fifteen by twenty feet. It was clapboarded outside, 
and plastered inside. The windows were of glass 
panes, six by four inches ; the chimney in. one end, 
large enough to receive a cord-wood stick of four 
feet in length, affording ample ventilation to the room ; 
the benches, three in number, extending the length 
and width of the room on three sides, the fourth 
occupied by the capacious chimney just named. In 
front of these writing-desks, as they were called, were 
the seats for the small children, and those back of 
them for the larger scholars. The fires were built 
alternately by the larger boys, and the schoolhouse 
swept by the larger girls in the same ratio. 

" The seats for these little children were the most 
uncomfortable that could possibly have been devised ; 
and, after stoves were introduced, these poor children 
had to sit so near them, that they sweat like rain, and 
their hair curled in every direction. 

" When the little urchins moved in front of the 
writing-desk (as they generally did), the whole desk 
was joggled, so that the writers made all kinds of 
characters. Tlie window- shutters were of rougli 
boards, resembling those of more modern date in 
Philadelphia; only they were unplaned, and never 

3* 



30 LIFE OF HOEACE GEEELEY. 

painted. The door-step was an unhewn rock, laid 
slanting, so as to carry off the water from the door, 
and, when icy, to trip up the pupils. The outside of 
the building was never painted but in one instance, — 
in another part of the town ; and this always went by 
the name of the red schoolhouse. Our schoolhouse 
was better situated for convenience than one described 
by another about these times ; for there were houses 
around it, and it stood in the little plat of land 
belonging to nobody, at the meeting of three roads." 
This writer describes his schoolhouse below : — 
" Ours, as already intimated, had a door-step very 
similar to the one he describes. Ours was also a 
better schoolhouse than the following, described by 
one a little earlier, wliere he taught in Vermont. He 
says of it, ' All the covering upon the frame was 
hemlock-boards, feather-edged and nailed on. There 
were no clapboards on the outside, nor plastering nor 
sealing-up on the inside. The chamber-floor consisted 
of loose boards, laid down, being neither jointed nor 
nailed. The lower floor was the same ; and there was 
not one window in the room. All the light, except- 
ing what came through between the boards, was as 
follows : There were two or three holes cut through 
the boards of the side and end of the house. These 
were filled up with a newspaper, " Spooner's Vermont 
Journal," which was oiled to let the light through, 
fixed into thin strips of wood, and made fast. 



PABENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 31 

" * These were all the windows we had. Sometimes 
the boys would by accident make a large hole through 
them with their elbows. Often,' when I first came 
into the room, I could discern but little. In this cold, 
damp, inconvenient place I spent three months, in- 
structing others to the best of my ability.' 

" Yet the pupils of those days were better pre- 
pared for life's duties than many who now graduate 
from our palace-like schoolhouses. 

" There was a vast contrast between these school- 
houses and those of modern times. Now we have 
palaces instead of those little shantys, or shanties as 
some may choose to spell it. Then, too, the masters 
(and they were properly called masters ; for they fol- 
lowed the proverb of Solomon, ' He that spareth the 
rod spoileth the child') were chiefly imported from 
Connecticut for the rest of New England, like Con- 
necticut nutmegs and wooden clocks. They had a 
smattering of knowledge in arithmetic and grammar, 
and could read English. 

" There were no school committees in those days, 
as now. The minister (Congregationalist, but called 
by all other denominations Presbyterian) acted as 
committee, ' approbated ' the teachers, and visited 
all the schools. Never shall I forget the moral lec- 
tures he used to give us, differing widely from the 
transcendental homilies of modern times. He would 



32 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

take up, for instance, the subject of lying ; and as he 
reiterated the Bible declaration, that' all liars should 
have their part in the lake that burnetii with fire and 
brimstone,* and pointed out the rueful consequences 
of moral obliquity both temporal and eternal, the 
attention of every eye was riveted upon tlie old man, 
who seemed a kind of connecting link between angels 
and men. The moral sentimental lessons of the 
present day are tame indeed when compared with 
the good old gospel morality of those times. 

" The school-books of those days were few, consist- 
ing of the Bible or Testament, Psalter, Noah Webster's 
Spelling-Book and Grammar, Jedediah Morse's Geog- 
raphy, the third part for a reading-book, and Dil- 
worth's Arithmetic. Mr. Greeley says, ' When I first 
went to school, Webster's Spelling was just supplanting 
Dilworth's, " The American Preceptor" was pushing 
aside " The Art of Reading," and the only Grammar 
was " The Ladies' Accidence," by Bingham. The first 
book I ever owned was " The Columbian Orator."' 
These were the sum total of the school-books ; and the 
master only had an arithmetic. Every teacher had 
not then learned that he must make a school-book, 
and rival publishers bribe teachers and the clergy 
to introduce their book. The ' dictionary war ' was 
then unknown ; and no book of the kind was heard of, 
save Bailey's, Johnson's, or Perry's. The pupil, as he 



PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 33 

trudged to school some mile or two up hill and down 
dale, through woods and snow-banks, was not com- 
pelled to carry liis arms full of books, and to divide 
his attention between some dozen studies at once, so 
as to get but a * smattering ' of any. Yet the boys 
and girls of those days (for there were both boys and 
girls then, while now there are neither) were better, 
far better, versed in all the substantials of a useful 
education than they are at present. Tiiey were 
better readers, better arithmeticians, and far better 
penmen, than can be found now. This declaration 
may seem humiliating to those who have latterly 
found so many royal roads to knowledge, and made 
the task of ascending the ' hill of science ' so easy, 
that their books — many of them, at least — may be 
characterized as ' simplicity simplified.' In penman- 
ship, especially, did they so far excel those of this day, 
that this so desirable accomplishment may now be 
classed among the ' lost arts.' 

" A schoolmaster then, too, was somebody. True, 
he ' boarded round,' — that is, a week or a day at a 
place, in proportion to the quota of pupils furnished, — 
or was bid off at the district meeting by the one who 
would board him tlie cheapest. But neither of these, 
on the whole, was a very bad plan, as the former 
enabled him to see and become acquainted with the 
parents and his pupils, and, moreover, to see the 



34 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 

young ladies at home (which is often important to a 
young man), and the latter to exhibit how well the 
paterfamilias could keep him at a minimum price. 

" The spelling-schools of those days, too, were worthy 
of note. There are no such in these modern times. 
To these, of course, the small children did not come : 
it was only for those boys and girls who were in their 
teens, and who were old enough to enjoy and ap- 
preciate ' a good time.' Many a time has the writer 
enjoyed a school of this kind, where the pupils ' chose 
sides,' and sat opposite each other, like the armies of 
Napoleon and Wellington, in formidable array, till one 
or the other was vanquished for missing more words 
than the conquerors. Those were halcyon schools, 
never to return to the pupils of these modern times. 

"The summer schools of those days, too, were 
worthy of notice ; for, let it be remembered, the mas- 
ters taught but two or three months (as the money 
held out) in winter. Then all the boys who were old 
enough to be cabin-boys, to hoe potatoes, rake hay, or 
be in any way useful to their parents, were away from 
those ancient halls of science ; and, instead of a mas- 
ter and the large scholars, there was a school-marm, 
and the small children, both male and female. This 
summer school was usually twice as long as that of 
the winter. It was in such a school as this that 
Horace Greeley took his first school-lessons." 



PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 35 

From that first book he ever owned, already referred 
to, he learned that famous piece, and spoke it before 
he could articulate the words plainly, — 

" You'd scarce expect one of my age 
To speak in public on the stage." 

He both lisped and whined, but was never wanting 
in confidence ; and who ever knew a Scotch-Irishman 
that was ? He excelled in spelling ; and this, gene- 
rally, lays the foundation for a scholar. He was the 
" pet " of his school-fellows ; and, it is said, those 
whom he excelled loved him best. He was never 
fond of play, being possessed of a thoughtful, con- 
templative intellect. An old minister of London- 
derry took him in his lap one day on a muster-field, 
and attempted to puzzle him by asking hard ques- 
tions ; but, finding him remarkably posted, put him 
down with this remark, addressed to his grandfather, 
" Mr. Woodburn, that boy was not made for nothing." 
He never feared ghosts ; though he is said to have been 
sometimes brave, and often timid. If attacked, he 
would neither run nor fight, but stand it out. He 
would often question the statements of his instruct- 
ors, though he was never impertinent. He would 
lie under a tree, and read by hours, when not more 
than six years old. At this early age he decided upon 
being a printer, because he loved books so much. It 



36 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

was said his parents were obliged to hide his books, 
lest he should read till he was blind ; and what he 
then read he always remembered. When he had 
stood at the head of his class, chiefly of pupils older 
than himself, he bore his honors meekly ; and when, 
on one occasion, he lost his place by missing a word, 
he wept. He devoured all the books that his father 
had, and then scoured the country for more. When 
he got hold of a newspaper, he would hasten to some 
secluded place, and there get the first read of it. 

Mr. Parton, in his " Life of Horace Greeley," says, 
" There were not wanting those who thought that 
superior means of instruction ought to be placed 
within the reach of so superior a child. I have a 
somewhat vague but very positive and fully con- 
firmed story of a young man, just returned from col- 
lege to his father's home in Bedford, who fell in with 
Horace, and was so struck with his capacity and at- 
tainments, that he offered to send him to an academy 
in a neighboring town, and bear all the expenses of his 
maintenance and tuition. But his mother could not 
let him go ; his father needed his assistance at home ; 
and the boy himself is said not to have favored the 
scheme.'' 

Many others seem to have become specially inter- 
ested in this wonderful boy. Some offered to instruct 
him in farming ; others undertook to puzzle him by 
hard questions, and often got puzzled themselves. 



PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND CHILDHOOD. 37 

He was not only honest, but faithful^ in all that he 
had to do. If his father left him any work to do, he 
always did it; unlike Ezekiel Webster, when his 
father told him to do a certain job, and added, " Dan, 
you help Zeke,'' and when the father returned, and 
found the work not done, and called Zeke to account, 
sayingj " What have you been doing ? " — " Nothin', 
sir," was Zeke's reply. " Well, Dan, what have you 
been doing ? " — " Been helping Zeke," was Dan's 
answer. Horace always did his jobs. Horace was 
fond of fishing ; indeed, this was the only sport he 
seemed to enjoy : but if any one said to him, " Let us 
go fishing," he always replied, " Let us do our stint 
first." 

He never loved murder ; and, if he went gunning 
with other boys, he never carried or fired a gun. His 
inherent dread of murder may be a reason why he 
now wishes " to bridge over the bloody chasm between 
the North and the South." 

4 



CHAPTER III. 

HORACE REMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

Horace's Father loses his Property. — The Old Greek Law. — Great Sacri- 
fice. — Moves to West Haven, Vt. — Horace's Dress. — At School he aids 
the Other Scholars. — A Checker-Player. — He scours the Country for 
Books. — Visits his Friends in Londonderry. — Taken for an Idiot. — His 
Teetotalism. — He begins to be a Politician. — His Description of it 
later in Life. 

WHEN he was only six or seven years old, the 
prospects of his father began to be clouded, 
and the storm soon broke by which they were com- 
pelled to give up their house and farm. His father 
lost all his property, and was compelled to leave his 
native State. 

No man could thrive in the Granite State without 
working very hard and living very close. He lost by 
disobeying the direction of the wise man, and being 
" bound " or surety for another. He used liquor, as 
everybody else did in those days ; and in this way he 
incurred losses : his affairs became deranged, and ere 
long he found himself at the bottom of the hill of 
bankruptcy. 

38 



REMOVES FEOM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 39 

Mr. Greeley iii his " Recollections," already named, 
gives the following account of affairs at this time : 
" We had finished our summer tillage and our hay- 
ing, when a very heavy rain set in, near the end of 
August. I think its second day was a Saturday ; and 
still the rain poured till far into the night. Father 
was absent on business ; but our mother gathered her 
little ones around her, and delighted us with stories, 
and prospects of good things she purposed to do for us 
in the better days she hoped to see. Father did not 
return till after we children were fast asleep ; and, 
when he did, it was with tidings that our ill fortune 
was about to culminate. I guess that he was scarcely 
surprised, though we young ones ruefully were, when, 
about sunrise on Monday morning, the sheriff and 
sundry other officials, with two or three of our prin- 
cipal creditors, appeared, and, first formally demand- 
ing payment of their claims, proceeded to levy on 
farm, stock, implements, household stufi", and nearly 
all our worldly possessions but the clothes we stood 
in. There had been no writ issued till then ; of 
course no trial, no judgment : but it was a word and 
a blow in those days, and the blow first, in the matter 
of debt-collecting by legal process. Father left the 
premises directly, apprehending arrest and imprison- 
ment, and was invisible all day : the rest of us 
repaired to a friendly neighbor's, and the work of levy- 



40 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 

ing went on in our absence. It were needless to add, 
that all we had was swallowed up, and our debts not 
much lessened. Our farm, which had cost us thirteen 
hundred and fifty dollars, and which had been con- 
siderably improved in our hands, was appraised, and 
set off to creditors at five hundred dollars, out of 
whicli the legal costs were first deducted. A barn 
full of rye, grown by us on another's land, whereof 
we owned an undivided half, was attached by a 
doctor, threshed out by his poorer customers by day's 
work on account, and sold ; the net result being an 
enlargement of our debt, the grain failing to meet 
all the costs. Thus, when night fell, we were as 
bankrupt a family as well could be." 

Horace was ten years old when his father fled from 
New Hampshire, and finally made his way to West 
Haven in Vermont. They made this journey in the 
middle of winter. He found some difficulty in get- 
ting a man to move his family, as he was a stranger ; 
but finally made arrangements with a teamster to 
go to New Hampshire and bring his family to Ver- 
mont. 

At West Haven Mr. Greeley (Zach) found a man 
who had once been a Boston merchant, but now re- 
tired, who owned much land, who gave him work, let 
him a house, and made a home for him. 

This removal to West Haven was in many respects 



REMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 41 

beneficial to the family. It was d, newer and better 
soil. A poor man with a large family of children 
could do better here ; and here Mr. Greeley did jobs, 
farmed for others, ran a saw-mill, cleared up land, and 
burnt coal-pits ; and, in all that he did, his family 
worked with him. 

Horace was his right-hand boy, driving the oxen, 
helping chop wood, and gather and burn the brush in 
clearing the land. He was always busy. Even at 
this early age, his dress was worn after a fashion of 
his own ; and he rarely wore more than three gar- 
ments in hot weather, — a straw hat (not often in very 
good condition), a coarse linen or tow shirt, trousers 
of family make-up, being short, and somebody says, 
" One leg was usually shorter than the other." In 
the cold weather he increased his apparel by shoes 
and a jacket. Five years he lived in West Haven : 
and it has been supposed, that, during this time, his 
clothes did not cost over three dollars a year ; and it 
has been conjectured, that, from his childhood till he 
was free, his clothing did not cost over fifty dollars. 
Wherever he was, — at home or abroad, at church, or 
among his playmates, — he was never known to make 
the slightest reference, or pay the least regard, to his 
dress. During the three winters he attended school 
in West Haven, he learned but little ; for he knew 
about all that was there taught. He always made an 



42 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

uncouth figure at school, sitting in his clean but 
coarse attire, his arms half folded, his legs crossed 
one over the other ; his head large, and bent forward ; 
and, though apparently indifierent, he saw every thing, 
knew every thing, and caught all that was said and 
done. 

Though he learned but little at his West-Haven 
schools, yet others learned much from him : for the 
bigger boys were ever after him for aid in getting 
their lessons, both in and out of school ; and he 
seemed pleased to render all the assistance in his 
power to any one. He annoyed some of his teachers at 
these schools because he knew more than they did. 
His questions they could not answer ; and he would 
not be put off. This cause continued till one of his 
teachers had sense and candor enough to go to his 
father and tell him it was no use to send Horace 
to school to him ; for the boy, though only thirteen, 
knew more than he did. The father took the hint, 
and took Horace from the school ; and so he read and 
studied all winter alone in his room lighted by pine- 
knots, for a candle was a luxury not often enjoyed. 

The only game he ever seemed to enjoy was 
checkers, or draughts ; and into this he entered 
with a zest. Tiiere was a good reason for this to such 
a mind as his; for there is no game into "whloXi planning' 
and scheming enter more deeply : and according to 



REMOVES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 43 

Dr. Emmons, the sage of Franklin, this was a game 
" fit " to be played ; for he laid down the maxim, that 
all chance-games were wrong, and all that exercised 
the intellect were right. 

He early showed the true Yankee ; for he was 
never idle, but would hack and whittle, and find 
something to employ himself about, and would have 
something to se/Z, such as roots, nuts, kindling-wood, 
and honey. He was a great bee-hunter, and, it is said, 
sometimes got a hundred and fifty pounds of honey 
from one tree. 

Thus, as is usually the case with every active poor 
boy in the country, he managed to have some money 
by him at all times. 

At West Haven, as he had done at Amherst, he 
scoured the whole country for books : he read the 
Bible, history, " Robinson Crusoe," " The Arabian 
Nights," and all the other books he could get. He 
was specially pleased witli Mrs. Hemans's poems. 

He kept always in view his determination to be a 
printer : and, when he was eleven years old, he talked 
with his father about it, but got no encouragement 
from him ; but, on the contrary, the father said no 
one would take an apprentice so young. This did 
not satisfy Horace : so off he tramped one day to White- 
hall, nine miles, where a newspaper was printed. He 
found the printer, conversed with him, and found, 



44 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

just as his father " Zach " had said, that he was too 
young. 

Soon after, our young hero started on a longer 
excursion to visit his old friends in Londonderry, dis- 
tant a hundred and twenty miles. All the money he 
had in his pocket for this long pedestrian tour was 
seventy-five cents. He carried a small bundle with a 
stick over his shoulder ; and, after remaining a few 
weeks, again appeared among his friends in West 
Haven with more money in his pocket than he had 
when he started on the journey. 

He was oftener than once, on the various journeys 
that he made, taken for an idiot. It is said he once 
entered a store, and a stranger inquired, " What darned 
fool is that ? " So it is also said he was in the habit 
of calling his father " sir." He was one day chop- 
ping wood by tlie side of the road, when a man rodo 
up and inquired the way to a certain place. The 
boy did not know, and answered, " Ask s^>." The 
man repeated liis question ; and the boy, without 
looking up, answered, " Ask s^>." — "lam asking ! '* 
exclaimed the man. " Well, ask siV," the boy again 
replied. " Ain't I asking, you fool ? " said the man. 
" But I want you to ask sir! " repeated the boy again. 
The man rode away in high dudgeon, and inquired 
at the next tavern who that tow-headed fool was down 
the road. 



EEMOYES FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 45 

Horace was a teetotaler long before any such pledge 
was known to a society. On one occasion, when a 
neighbor called, and the bottle was produced, as was 
the custom in those days, Horace said, " Father, what 
will you give me if I will not drink a drop of liquor 
till I am twenty-one ? " His father answered, " I will 
give you a dollar." — "It's a bargain," said the boy. 
He kept the pledge ; but, whether he received the dol- 
lar or not, I have never learned. 

At West Haven, Horace came jiear being drowned 
one day. They lived on the bank of the Hub- 
barton River. The river, in consequence of a dam 
for a saw-mill which his father run for a time, 
was deep enough to drown a man. They used to 
cross the river by logs : and the boys were floating 
about upon them one day, when the younger brother 
was thrown into the water by the rolling over of the 
log he was upon ; and, when he rose, Horace has- 
tened to his relief. In attempting to save his brother, 
the log rolled over again, and plunged Horace also 
into the river. They came near being drowned, as 
neither of them could swim. The younger one got 
out first ; and, as the log floated into shallower water, 
he sprang upon it. and was saved. 

This, if it was the first, was not the last, of Horace 
Greeley's " log-rolling ; " for he has rolled many a 
soaky one out of the way since. 



46 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

About this time, he was greatly delighted with the 
story of Demetrius, and the manner in which he man- 
aged the Athenians, and how he overcame by mercy. 

He was considerably excited on political matters 
while at West Haven, though so young. He seems to 
have imbibed his principles of protection — his lifelong 
hobby — about this period. Though but thirteen, he, 
after twenty years, wrote them out in " The Tribune " 
of Aug. 29, 1846, as follows : — 

" The first political contest in which we ever took a 
distinct interest will serve to illustrate this distinction 
[between real and sham democracy]. It was the 
presidential election of 1824. Five candidates for 
president were offered ; but one of them was with- 
drawn, leaving four, — all of them members in regular 
standing of the so-called Republican or Democratic 
party. But a caucus of one-fourth of the members of 
Congress had selected one of the four (William H. 
Crawford) as the Republican candidate ; and it was 
attempted to make the support of this one a test of 
party orthodoxy and fealty. This was resisted, we 
think most justly and democratically, by three-fourths 
of the people, including a large majority of those of this 
State. But among the prime movers of the caucus- 
wires was Martin Van Buren of this State ; and here it 
was gravely proclaimed and insisted that democracy 
required a blind support of Crawford in preference 



BEMOVES FEOM NEW HAMPSHIEE. 47 

to Adams, Jackson, or Clay (all of the Democratic 
party), who were competitors for the station. A legis- 
lature was chosen as ' Republican,' before the people 
generally had begun to think of the presidency ; and 
this legislature, it was undoubtedly expected, would 
choose Crawford electors of president. But the 
friends of the rival candidates at length began to bestir 
themselves, and demand that the New- York electors 
should be chosen by a direct vote of the people, and 
not by a forestalled legislature. This demand was 
vehemently resisted by Martin Yan Buren and those 
who followed his lead, including the leading Demo- 
cratic politicians and editors of the State, ' The Alba- 
ny Argus,' 'Noah's Inquirer, or National Advocate,' 
&c. The feeling in favor of an election by the people 
became so strong and general, that Gov. Yates, though 
himself a Crawford man, was impelled to call a spe- 
cial session of the legislature for this express purpose. 
The assembly passed a bill giving the choice to the 
people by an overwhelming majority, in defiance of the 
exertions of Van Buren, A. C. Flagg, &c. The bill 
went to the senate ; to which body Silas Wright had 
recently been elected from the Northern District, and 
elected by Clintonian votes on an explicit understand- 
ing that he would vote for giving the choice of the 
electors to the people. He accordingly voted on one 
or two abstract propositions, that the choice ought to 



48 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

he given to the people ; but, when it came to a direct 
vote, this same Silas Wright (now governor) voted to 
deprive the people of that privilege by postponing the 
whole subject to the next regular session of the legisla- 
ture, when it would be too late for the people to choose 
electors for that time. A bare majority (seventeen) of 
the senators thus withheld from the people the right 
they demanded. The cabal failed in their great ob- 
ject, after all : for several members of the legislature, 
elected as Democrats, took ground for Mr. Clay, and, 
by uniting with the friends of Mr. Adams, defeated 
most of the Crawford electors ; and Crawford lost the 
presidency. We were but thirteen when this took 
place, but looked on very earnestly, witliout preju- 
dice, and tried to look beyond the mere names by 
which the contending parties were called. Could we 
doubt that democracy was on one side, and the Demo- 
cratic party on the other ? Will ' Democrats ' attempt 
to gainsay it now ? Mr. Adams was chosen president, 
— as thorough a democrat, in the true sense of the 
word, as ever lived ; a plain, unassuming, upright, 
and most capable statesman. He managed the public 
affairs so well, that nobody could really give a reason 
for opposing him ; and hardly any two gate the same 
reason. Tliere was no party conflict during his time 
respecting the bank, tariff, internal improvements, nor 
any thing else of a substantial character. He kept 



REMOVES FEOM NEW HAMPSHIRE. 49 

the expenses of the government very moderate ; he 
never turned a man out of office because of a differ- 
ence of political sentiment : yet it was determined at 
tlie outset that he should be put down, no matter how 
well he might administer the government ; and a com- 
bination of the old Jackson, Crawford, and Calhoun 
parties, with the personal adherents of De Witt Clin- 
ton, aided by a shamefully false and preposterous 
outcry that he had obtained the presidency by a 
bargain with Mr. Clay, succeeded in returning an 
opposition Congress in the middle of his term, and, at 
its close, to put in Gen. Jackson over him by a large 
majority. 

" The character of this man Jackson we had studied 
pretty thoroughly, and without prejudice. His fatal 
duel with Dickinson about a horse-race ; his pistolling 
Col. Benton in the streets of Nashville ; his forcing 
his way through the Indian country with his drove of 
negroes in defiance of the express order of the agent 
Dinsmore ; his imprisonment of Judge Hall at New 
Orleans long after the British had left that quarter, 
and when martial law ought long since to have been 
set aside ; his irruption into Florida, and capture of 
Spanish posts and officers, without a shadow of authority 
to do so ; his threats to cut off the ears of senators who 
censured this conduct in solemn debate ; in short, his 
whole life, — convinced us that the man never was a 

6 



50 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

democrat in any proper sense of the term, but a vio- 
lent and lawless despot, after the pattern of Caesar, 
Cromwell, and Napoleon, and unfit to be trusted with 
power. Of course we went against him, but not 
against any thing really democratic in him or his 
party. 

" That Gen. Jackson in power justified all our pre- 
vious expectations of him need hardly be said ; that 
he did more to destroy the republican character of 
our government, and render it a centralized despot- 
ism, than any other man could do, wq certainly 
believe : but our correspondent and we would proba- 
bly disagree with regard to the bank and other ques- 
tions which convulsed the Union during his rule ; and 
we will only ask his attention to one of them, the 
earliest, and, in our view, the most significant. 

" The Cherokee Indians owned, and had ever 
occupied, an extensive tract of country lying within 
the geographical limits of Georgia, Alabama, &c. It 
was theirs by the best possible title, — theirs by our 
solemn and reiterated treaty stipulations. We had 
repeatedly bought from them slices of their lands, 
solemnly guaranteeing to them all that we did not 
buy, and agreeing to defend them therein against all 
aggressors. We had promised to keep all intruders 
out of their territory. At least one of these treaties 
was signed by Gen. Jackson himself; others by Wash- 



REMOVES FEOM NEW HAMPSHIEE. 51 

ington, Jefferson, &q. All the usual pretexts for 
aggression upon Indians failed in this case. The 
Cherokees had been our friends and allies for many 
years ; they had committed no depredations ; they 
were peaceful, industrious, in good part Cliristianized, 
had a newspaper printed in their own tongue, and 
were fast improving in the knowledge and application 
of the arts of civilized life. They compared favorably 
every way with their white neighbors. But the 
Georgians coveted their fertile lands, and determined 
to have them : - they set them up in a lottery, and 
gambled them off among themselves, and resolved to 
take possession. A fraudulent treaty was made between 
a few Cherokees of no authority or consideration and 
sundry white agents, including one ' who stole the 
livery of Heaven to serve the Devil in ; ' but every- 
body scoffed at this mockery, as did ninety-nine hun- 
dredths of the Cherokees." 



CHAPTER IV. 

HORACE BECOMES AN APPRENTICE. 

Horace visits Poultney. — His Description by Mr. Bliss. — He is a Match for 
the School-committee Man. — He is employed. — What the Otlier 
Printers in the OflSce think of him. — Horace in the Lyceum. — He boards 
at the Tavern, but won't drink. — What a New- York Physician said of 
him. — Anti- Masonry of that Time. 

k 

HORACE wanted to be an apprentice, strange as 
it may seem ; and in 1826 he went to East 
Poultney, Yt. He had learned that a newspaper was 
printed there, and that a Mr. Amos Bliss, who was the 
manager and one of the owners, wanted a boy. Horace 
entered the gate, and found Mr. Bliss in his garden, 
planting potatoes. He heard Horace open the gate, 
and, looking round, saw a singular-looking boy. Still 
Mr. Bliss continued his work until Horace said to 
him, " Are you the man that carries on the printing- 
office ? " Mr. Bliss then inspected the boy more care- 
fully, and noticed that he had on no stockings ; his 
shoes were what were called " high-lows ; " his hat an 
old " felt,** of a small brim, set on the back of his 

52 



BECOMES AN APPRENTICE. 53 

head ; and his hair nearly white. The Avliole appear- 
ance of the lad was ludicrous. But he finally an- 
swered, " Yes : I'm the man." 

" Don't you want a boy to learn the trade ? " said 
Horace. 

" Well," said Mr. Bliss, " we have been thinking of 
it. Do you want to learn to print ? " 

" I've had some notion of it," said Horace. 

Mr. Bliss was perplexed : it seemed strange to him 
that such a looking chap as he was should ever have 
thought of printing. 

" Well, my boy ; but you know it requires consider- 
able learning to be a printer. Have you been to school 
much ? " 

" No," said Horace. " I haven't had much chance 
at school. I've read some." 

" What have you read ? " 

" Well, I've read some history, and some travels, 
and a little of most every thing." 

" Where do you live ? " 

" At West Haven." 

" How did you come here ? " 

" I came on foot." 

" What's your name ? " 

" Horace Greeley." 

This Mr. Bliss had been one of the committee of 
common schools, and had been accustomed to examine 

6* 



54 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

both teachers and pupils ; and he loved this business 
well, and considered himself quite skilled in it : so he 
went on with his examination of this queer-looking 
boy, asking all the questions he could think of. And 
the examiner found his match. So, when the exami- 
nation ended, Mr. Bliss told him he thought he would 
do, and he might go into the printing-office and see 
the foreman. Horace went into the office, where there 
were three other apprentices, who never forgot his 
remarkable appearance. Horace addressed the fore- 
man, who felt surprised that Mr. Bliss should have 
sent such a looking boy into the office. But, on talk- 
ing with the boy a few minutes, he became impressed 
with the idea that he was worth something. He tore 
off a slip of paper, wrote a few words on it with a pen- 
cil, gave it to Horace, and told him to take it to Mr. 
Bliss. His destiny depended on that paper : it had on 
it, " Guess we'd better try him.^^ After another exami- 
nation by Mr. Bliss, he agreed to take Horace as an 
apprentice, provided his father would agree to the 
terms, and sign the usual documents. 

At night one of the apprentices said, " Mr. Bliss, 
you're not going to hire that tow-head ; are you ? " — "I 
am," was the answer ; " and, if you boys are expecting 
to get any fun out of him, you'd better get it quick, 
or you'll be too late. There's something in that tow- 
head, as you'll find out before you're a week older." 



BECOMES AN APPRENTICE. 55 

The next day Horace gathered his scanty wardrobe 
into a pocket-handkerchief, and started with his father 
for East Poultney. Horace's little handkerchief was 
not full ; for he had but two shirts and one change of 
other clothes. 

But the terms upon which Mr. Bliss would take 
Horace as an apprentice were such that his father could 
not agree to : so he objected to every part of the pro- 
posals. He must be bound for five years, and receive 
his board only, and twenty dollars a year. Mr. Gree- 
ley had made up his mind that none of his children 
should be " bound : " five years seemed too long to 
serve, and twenty dollars a year too small a sum. But 
Mr. Bliss said these were the usual terms, and he 
should agree to no others. Mr. Greeley, however, 
stuck to his declaration with a Greeley's tenacity, till 
Horace, with a pleading countenance and his whining 
voice, interposed, and said, " Father, I guess you'd bet- 
ter make a bargain with Mr. Bliss : I guess it won't 
make much difference." Mr. Bliss had intimated that 
he should do business in no other way. " Well then, 
Horace," said Mr. Greeley, " let us go home ; " and 
the father turned to go ; but Horace still stopped. 
But other terms were proposed and adopted ; and the 
father returned to West Haven, and Horace went into 
the printing-office in Poultney. While here, he made 
his first efforts at original composition. Ho wrote 



56 LIFE OF HOEACE GEEELEY. 

paragraphs for the paper ; and, during the whole time 
that he remained in Poultney, he rendered good ser- 
vice to the paper in editorials. 

A lyceum had been formed before Horace went to 
Poultney, which he soon joined, and became one of its 
active members. It had become very popular, persons 
coming ten miles to attend its meetings. The ques- 
tions discussed were of the following tenor : " Is the 
Union likely to continue ? " " Was Napoleon Bonaparte 
a great man ? " '' May a person take the life of another 
in self-defence ? " "Is novel-reading injurious to soci- 
ety ? '* " Do we as a nation exert a good influence 
upon the world ? " <fec. On these and many other 
questions Horace was semper par atus (always ready). 

Soon after Horace commenced his apprenticeship, 
his father removed from West Haven, Vt., to Erie 
County, Penn., and bought a considerable tract of 
wild land. Twice Horace visited his father in his new 
home, and walked a great part of the way, the distance 
being six hundred miles. 

He remained in Poultney four years, and boarded 
at the tavern, where everybody drank but Horace. 
One says, " I never feared for him. He was always 
right. At the table he always helped himself, and 
never sought to be waited upon." 

Mr. Parton, in his " Life of Horace Greeley," gives 
the following interesting sketch of him, by a New- York 



BECOMES AK APPEENTICE. 57 

physician, who happened to be present at one of those 
dinners at the Poultney Tavern when eatables and 
mentals were discussed : " Did I ever tell yon how 
and where I first saw my friend Horace Greeley ? 
Well, thus it happened. It was one of the proudest 
and happiest days of my life. I was a country-boy 
then, a farmer's son ; and we lived a few miles from 
East Poultney. On the day in question, I was sent by 
my father to sell a load of potatoes at the store in East 
Poultney, and bring back various commodities in ex- 
change. Now, this was the first time, you must know, 
that I had ever been intrusted with so important an 
errand. I liad been to the village with my father often 
enough ; but now I was to go alone, and I felt as proud 
and independent as a midsliipman the first time he 
goes ashore in command of a boat. Big with the fate 
of twenty bushels of potatoes, off I drove, reached the 
village, sold out my load, drove round to the tavern, 
put up my horses, and went in to dinner. This going 
to the tavern on my own account, all by myself, and 
paying my own bill, was, I thought, the crowning 
glory of the whole adventure. There were a good 
many people at dinner, — the sheriff of the county and 
an ex-member of Congress among them, — and I felt 
considerably abashed at first ; but I had scarcely be- 
gun to eat, when my eyes fell upon an object so singu- 
lar, that I could do little else than stare at it all the 



68 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

while it remained iii the room. It was a tall, pale, 
white-haired, gawky boy, seated at the farther end 
of the table. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and was 
eating with a rapidity and awkwardness that I never 
saw equalled before nor since. It seemed as if he was 
eating for a wager, and had gone in to win. He neither 
looked up nor round, nor appeared to pay the least 
attention to the conversation. My first thought was, 

* This is a pretty sort of a tavern to let such a fellow as 
that sit at the same table with all these gentlemen : 
he ought to come in with the hostler.' I thought it 
strange, too, that no one seemed to notice him ; and I 
supposed he owed his continuance at the table to that 
circumstance alone. And so I sat, eating little myself, 
and occupied in watching the wonderful performance 
of this wonderful youth. At length, the conversation 
at the table became (pite animated, turning upon some 
measure of an early Congress ; and a question arose 
how certain members had voted on its final passage. 
There was a difference of opinion ; and the sheriff, a 
very finely-dressed personage, I thought, to my bound- 
less astonishment referred the matter to the unac- 
countable boy, saying, ' Ain't that right, Greeley ? ' — 
' No,' said the unaccountable, without looking up, 

* you're wrong.' — 'There,' said the ex-member, 'I 
told you so ! ' — 'And you're wrong too,' said the still 
devouring mystery. Then he laid down his knife and 



BECOMES AN APPRENTICE. 59 

fork, and gave the history of the measure, explained 
the state of parties at the time, stated the vote in dis- 
pute, named the leading advocates and opponents of 
the bill, and, in short, gave a complete exposition of the 
whole matter. I listened and wondered; but what 
surprised me most was, that the company received his 
statement as pure gospel, and as settling the question 
beyond dispute, as a dictionary settles a dispute re- 
specting the spelling of a word. A minute after, the 
boy left the dining-room, and I never saw him again, 
till I met him, years after, in the streets of New York, 
when I claimed acquaintance with him as a brother 
Vermonter, and told him this story, to his great amuse- 
ment." 

Horace is represented, by those who knew him at 
the time of his apprenticeship, as very free from every 
thing of a vicious character, and with a strong deter- 
mination to study every subject that came in his way. 
Thougli so young, he was even theu an ardent politi- 
cian ; and the exciting incidents of those days were by 
no means calculated to cool his ardor. Some of us 
still remember the excitement about the time that 
President Jackson reigned, and that political lying 
has rarely, if ever, in our country, been carried to 
greater perfection than in those days. Jackson's 
" cotton-bags " had gained him the battle of New Or- 
leans, which made him president j but, if he had lost 



60 LIFE OF HORACE GBEELEY. 

that, he would have been shot, instead of being re- 
corded with censure for disobeying orders. 

It was while Horace was in Poultney that the anti- 
Masonic excitement began on account of Morgan's 
book and disappearance. Morgan was of the same 
craft with Horace ; and, when these two events trans- 
pired, the whole North, almost to a man, except those 
of the Masonic craft, became furious against the order. 

The writer has a vivid recollection of those times, all 
which he saw, and part of which he was. No man, in 
many of our towns, who was a Mason, could hold even 
the smallest office. Many lodges surrendered their 
charters ; and the order was supposed to have become 
deadj and no man supposed it would revive as it has, 
and run again, like a fox with a new tail, as it now 
does in 1872. Horace entered zealously into the con- 
test, and was a strong anti-Mason. 

He had now learned liis trade ; was no longer a boy, 
but a man. True, he had acquired but little knowl- 
edge in school : but he had studied men and things, 
and his head originated many good ideas ; and, if he 
could have carried them all out, the world would have 
been the wiser for them. 



CHAPTER Y. 

HORACE TRAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 

Mr. Greeley nfoves to Pennsylvania. — He leaves Vermont. — Visits his 
Father's Log-Cabin. — Visits Jamestown for Work. — Next goes to 
Erie. — His Amusing Reception. — Goes to Work. — A Lady's Opinion 
of him. — He leaA'-es Erie. — His Arrival in Ne*w York. — His finding a 
Boarding-House. — Gets into an O^fise. — Mr. West's Opinion of him. — 
His Success as a Typo. — Works on " The Spirit of the Times. ' — Visits 
New Hampshire. — A Good Dinner. 

ON leaving Poultney, he first visited his father in 
Pennsylvania. He had so distinguished him- 
self among his acquaintances in Poultney, that the 
landlord and one of the boarders at the tavern gave 
him an old brown overcoat. It was the first he ever 
had. They gave him this in consideration that he 
was poor, had been among them four years, and had 
never given tliem any trouble ; and, as an additional 
cause, they had learned that his father was also poor. 
In June, 1830, he put his stick through his little 
bundle comprising all his wardrobe, and left Poultney. 
All Nature was in her most lovely green. When he 
had walked fourteen miles, he came to Comstock's 
e 61 



62 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

Fording ; and then, partly by a canal-boat, and partly 
on foot, he made his way to Schenectady, whence he 
took a boat on the Erie Canal. This journey of six 
hundred miles took him a week, and cost him seven 
dollars. 

On arrival at his father's residence, he found him 
in a small log-cabin (not equal to many built to elect 
William H. Harrison in 1840, and which, with the 
ridicule thrown on that old hero, and the hard cider 
which he lived on, did elect him) situated in a little 
clearing he had made, and changed to a backwoods- 
man. The uprooted and half-burnt stumps pro- 
claimed the labor that had been performed. Any one 
who has penetrated the back counties of Pennsylva- 
nia, even within the last ten years, can have some 
idea of the dense forests, hills and valleys, and 
dens and caves, of this desolate region. But, at that 
time, deer, wolves, and all kinds of serpents, inhabited 
these gloomy regions. The wolves were so numerous 
and bold, that they would prowl around in packs, and 
devour all the sheep they could catch. Mr. Greeley 
had kept sheep in Vermont, and tried the experiment 
here ; but, after having at least a hundred killed by 
these wolves, he gave it up. The soil was good, as it 
generally is where Quakers and wild animals make 
their homes. 

Horace, now being at leisure, spent several weeks 



TEAVELS, AND AEEIVES IN NEW YOEK. 63 

at his father's house, aiding his father, and amusing 
himself as best he could. At this time his leg troubled 
him considerably, which his good mother nursed to 
the best of her ability, and which was finally cured by 
an old doctor who lived twenty-fi.ve miles off from 
his father's home. 

Horace could not be quiet long: so one day he 
walked over to Jamestown, where a newspaper was 
being printed, to get work ; which he did : but, when 
Saturday night came, no pay came with it. After 
working four days more, and seeing no prospect of 
pay, he returned home. He was satisfied he could 
get no money there. His next trip was made into 
the State of New York, still seeking work. He went 
to Lodi, fifty miles from his father's clearing. Here 
he found employment upon a Jackson paper. He 
was now twenty years old, and somewhat of a poli- 
tician. He calculated chances ; but he failed : for he 
wrote to his friends in Vermont that Francis Granger 
would be elected governor by a hundred and twenty- 
five majority ; but he was not elected at all. He 
received but little money at Lodi ; and, after gaining 
some reputation as a smart politician and an excellent 
checker-player, he again returned home. At these 
placeslie found work ; but he did not find the cash. 

Soon he took another trip, and then started for the 
town of Erie, which was distant thirty miles, on the 



64 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

shore of the lake of the same name. Two prhiting- 
offices had been established in Erie, and it was a larger 
town than those he had visited ; and here he hoped 
to find both work and pay. 

He still wore the uncouth garments he had else- 
where ; and, of course, made his usual grotesque ap- 
pearance wlien he entered Erie. He wore the same 
slouched hat ; he carried his wardrobe in the same 
red cotton handkerchief, slung over his shoulder on the 
same stick. He noticed nobody as he made his way 
through the streets of this rustic town to the office of 
" The Erie Gazette," which was a weekly paper, pub- 
lished by Joseph M. Sterritt. 

Mr. Sterritt afterwards gave the following account 
of Horace as he first saw him : " I was not in the 
printing-office when he arrived : I came in soon after, 
and saw him sitting at the table reading the news- 
papers, and so absorbed in them, that he paid no at- 
tention to my entrance. My first feeling was one of 
astonishment that a fellow so singularly green in his 
appearance should be reading^ and, above all, reading 
so intently I looked at him for a few moments ; and 
then, finding that he made no movement towards ac- 
quainting me with his business, I took up my compos- 
it 
ing-stick, and went to work. He continued to read 

for twenty painutes or more ; when he got up, and, 
coming close to my case, asked in his peculiar 
whining voice, — 



TRAVELS, AND AEKIVES IN NEW YORK. 65 

"^ Do you want any help in the printing-business? ' 

" ' Why,' said I, running my eye involuntarily up 
and down the extraordinary figure, ' did you ever 
work at the trade ? ' 

" ' Yes/ was the reply. ' I worked some at it in an 
office in Vermont ; and I should be willing to work 
under instruction, if you could give me a job.' " 

Mr. Sterritt supposed him to be a runaway appren- 
tice ; and, not having a good opinion of this class, he 
said he did not want any more assistance (which, 
by the way, was false), and Horace departed without 
saying another word. 

He went to the other office, and met with no better 
success : so he budged home again, having found but 
little comfort in this journey. Nevertheless, some- 
thing did come out of tliis tramp ; for a few days after 
it, as Mr. Sterritt related the affair, '' An acquaint- 
ance of mine, a farmer, called at the office, and in- 
quired if I wanted a journeyman. I did. He said a 
neighbor of his had a son who learned the printing- 
business somewhere down East, and wanted a place. 
' What sort of a looking fellow is he ? ' said I. He 
described him ; and I knew at once that he was my 
supposed runaway apprentice. My friend tlie farmer 
gave him a high character, however: so I said, ' Send 
him along ; ' and, a day or two after, along he came." 

He went to work at his own terms ; that is, he was 

6* 



66 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

to try, and his employer was to pay him what he 
pleased. Report says, when he went into the family 
of his employer to board, a lady there said, " Well, 
Mr. Sterritt, you've hired that fellow to work for you, 
have you ? Well, you won't keep him three days.'* 
Her opinion, however, soon changed, as did that of all 
others who became acquainted with the lad. 

Mr. Greeley gives the following account of his en- 
gagement in this place in his '^ Recollections of a 
Busy Life : " "I now visited Erie, Penn., where I found 
work in the office of ' The Erie Gazette,' and was 
retained at fifteen dollars per month well into the 
ensuing summer. This was the first newspaper 
whereon I was employed that made any money for 
its owner, and thus had a pecuniary value. It had 
been started twenty years or so before, when borough 
and county were both thinly peopled almost wholly 
by poor young men ; and it had grown with the vici- 
nage, until it had a substantial, profitable patronage. 
Its proprietor, Mr. Joseph M. Sterritt, now in the 
prime of life, had begun on ' The Gazette ' as a boy, 
and grown up with it into general consideration and 
esteem. His journeymen and apprentices boarded at 
his house, as was fit ; and I spent here fiv^e months 
industriously and agreeably. Though still a raw youth 
of twenty years, and knowing no one in the borough 
when I thus entered it, I made acquaintances there 



TRAVELS, AND ARRIVES IN NEW YORK. 67 

who are still valued friends ; and, before I left, I was 
offered a partnership in the concern, which, though 
I had reasons for declining, was none the less flatter- 
ing as a mark of appreciation and conBdence. Mr. 
Sterritt has since represented his district acceptably 
in the Senate of Pennsylvania ; has received other 
proofs of the trustful regard of his fellow-citizens ; 
and, though he has retired from ' The Gazette,' still 
lives in the enjoyment of competence and general 
esteem." 

Mr. Greeley says he spent five months in this office ; 
Mr. Parton says he spent seven months there: which is 
correct we are unable to say. Wlien he closed his 
labor there, he had taken up but six dollars of his 
wages: of the remainder he took fifteen dollars in 
money, and a note for the rest. He now made his 
way to his father's cabin, kept the fifteen dollars, and 
gave the note to his father. After remaining at home 
a few days, Horace formed the bold plan of visiting 
the city of New York. 

He walked to the Erie Canal, took the boat at 
Buffalo, and went to Schenectady : here he left the 
canal,' and walked to Albany. Mr. Greeley says, 
" Night fell when I was about half way over : so I 
sought rest in one of the many indifferent taverns that 
then lined the turnpike in question, and was directed 
to sleep in an anteroom through which people were 



68 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

momently passing. I declined, and, gathering up my 
handful of portables, walked on. Half a mile far- 
ther I found another tavern, not quite so inliospi- 
table, and managed to stay in it till morning ; when I 
rose, and walked on to Albany. Having never been 
in that city before, I missed the nearest way to the 
day-boat ; and, when I reached the landing, it was two 
or three lengths on its way to New York, having left at 
seven, a.m. I had no choice but to wait for another, 
which started at ten, a.m., towing a barge on either 
side ; and reached in twenty hours the emporium, 
where I, after a good view of the city as we passed it 
down the river, was landed near Whitehall at six, 

A.M." 

New York then contained about one-third as many 
inhabitants as it does now. " I had never before seen 
a city," says he, " containing twenty thousand, nor a 
sea-going vessel." 

There was then (1831) not a railroad in the land 
save the short one to take granite from the Quincy 
ledges to the water. Not an ocean-steamer visited 
any of our ports. 

Mr. Greeley goes on : " I was now twenty years old 
the preceding February; tall, slender, pale, and plain, 
with ten dollars in my pocket ; summer clothing, 
worth perhaps as much more, nearly all on my back ; 
and a decent knowledge of so much of the art of 



TRAVELS, AND AKKIVES IN NEW YOKK. 69 

printing as a boy will usually get in the office of a 
country newspaper. But I knew no human being 
within two hundred miles ; and my unmistakably 
rustic manner and address did not favor that imme- 
diate command of remunerating employment which 
was my most urgent need. However, the world was 
all before me : my personal estate, tied up in a pocket- 
handkerchief, did not at all encumber me ; and I 
^stepped lightly off the boat, and away from the de- 
tested hiss of escaping steam, walking into and up 
Broad Street in quest of a boarding-house. I found 
and entered one at or near the corner of Wall : but 
the price of board given me was six dollars per 
week ; so I did not need the giver's candidly kind 
suggestion, that I would probably prefer one where 
the charge was more moderate. Wandering thence, I 
cannot say liow, to the North-river side, I halted next 
at 168 West Street, where the sign of ' Boarding ' on a 
humbler edifice fixed my attention. I entered, and 
was offered shelter and subsistence at two dollars 
and fifty cents per week, which seemed more rational ; 
and I closed the bargain. 

" My host was Mr. Edward McGolrick, his place quite 
as much grog-shop as boarding-house ; but it was 
quietly, decently kept while I staid in it, and he and 
his family were kind and friendly. I regret to add 
that liquor proved his ruin not many years after- 



70 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

ward. My first day in New York was a Friday ; and, 
the family being Roman Catholic, no meat was eaten 
or provided, which I understood : but, when Sunday 
evening was celebrated by unlimited card-playing in 
that same house, my traditions were decidedly jarred. 
I do not imply that my observances were better or 
worse than my host's, but that they were different. 
Having breakfasted, I began to ransack the city for 
work, and, in my total ignorance, traversed many streets 
where none could possibly be found. In the course of 
that day and the next, however, I must have visited 
fully two-thirds of the printing-offices on Manhattan 
Island, without a gleam of success. It was midsum- 
mer, when business in New York is habitually dull ; 
and my youth, and unquestionable air of country green- 
ness, must have told against me. When I called at 
* The Journal of Commerce,' its editor, Mr. David 
Hale, bluntly told me I was a runaway apprentice from 
some country office ; which was a very natural though 
mistaken presumption. I returned to my lodging on 
Saturday evening, thoroughly weary, disheartened, 
disgusted with New York, and resolved to shake its 
dust from my feet next Monday morning, while I 
could still leave with money in my pocket, and before 
its almshouse could foreclose upon me." 

But this was not to take place ; for Horace Greeley 
had work to do in New York. On Sunday, some 



TRAVELS, AND ARIIIYES IN NEW YORK. 71 

young Irishmen came to McGolrick's ; and, learning 
that Mr. Greeley was a young printer in search of 
employment, they became interested in his case, and 
one of them happened to know of a place where they 
wanted printers. So Mr. Greeley visited the place 
next morning, and readily found work. He had been 
in the habit of rising early, and was at the printing- 
office of Mr. West long before any one appeared who 
was connected with the work. McElrath and Bangs 
were publishers, and John T. West did their printing. 
Horace waited on the steps at 85 Chatham Street what 
seemed to him a long time before any one came. At 
lengtli, one of the journeymen came. The door being 
still locked, he sat down on the steps, and entered into 
conversation with Horace. He related his condition, 
his necessity, his great want of employment. The 
man was from Vermont ; and, becoming interested in his 
fellow Yermonter, he determined to assist him, which 
he did very efficiently. He took Horace to the fore- 
man ; and, though the appearance of the new-comer 
was against him, through the intercession of his new 
friend the journeyman the foreman set him to work. 
It was, however, upon a hard job, — the composition of 
a polyglot Testament. Two or three had worked upon 
the same, and given it up as " a bad job ;" and the fore- 
man had not the least idea that he would succeed ; but 
as he wanted the work done, and wished also to oblige 



72 LIFE OF HOEACE GKEELEY. 

his journeyman, who was a clever fellow, he told him 
to '' fix him up a case," and set him at work. 

An hour or two later, Mr. West came into the office ; 
and, after taking a survey of the new-comer, he said 
to the foreman, — 

" Did you hire that fool ? " 

" Yes," replied the foreman. " We need help, and 
he was the best I could get." 

" Well," continued West, " pay him off to-night, and 
send him about his business." 

This command would doubtless have been obeyed 
but for the fact that Horace presented at night a bet- 
ter " proof," and much more of it, than either of the 
others that had worked on the same job. The fore- 
man was astonished, and did not indulge the thought 
of sending him away a moment. 

Of this job Mr. Greeley says, " This work was at my 
call simply because no printer who knew the city 
would accept it." 

After leaving the office of Mr. West, Horace found 
work on " The Spirit of the Times." This was a 
sporting-paper, published by Messrs. Porter and Howe. 
Here, through that dreary summer (1832), Horace 
worked at very small wages. The whole business of 
New York was paralyzed by fear of the cholera. 

In October, 1832, Horace visited his friends in New 
Hampshire. He had a hard time walking over a con- 



TRAVELS, AND AREIVES IN NEW YORK. 73 

sidorable part of the State through raiii and sun. 
His relatives were scattered over all the lower part of 
the Granite State, and into Vermont. His visiting 
was as hard as his finding employment in New York 
had been. One may judge of his trials on this jour- 
ney by what he says in the following sentence : " I 
met one poor soul who had a horse and wagon, and 
heartily pitied him. He could hardly ride, while my 
walk was far easier and less anxious than his." 

At Stoddard, having breakfasted early and walked 
long, Horace says, " I stepped into a convenient tavern, 
and called for dinner. My breakfast had been quite 
early. The keen air and rough walk had freshened 
my appetite. I was shown into a dining-room with a 
well-spread table, and left to help myself. There were 
steaks, chickens, coffee, pies, &c. I did ample justice 
to all. * What is to pay ? ' I asked the landlord on 
re-entering the bar-room. ' Dinner eighteen and 
three-quarter cents,' he replied. I laid down the re- 
quired sum, and stepped off, mentally resolving that I 
would, in mercy to that tavern, never patronize it 
again." 

7 



CHAPTER VI. 

GREELEY COMMENCES BUSINESS. 

Horace in the " Watch-House." — Greeley driven to New York. — " The 
Morning Post" fails. — He appeals in Vain to his Subscribers to pay. 
— His Honesty and Integrity. — His Editorial Luxuries. — Interview 
with the Wrathy Quack. — Horace's Poetry. — " The New-Yorker." — 
" The Jeffersonian." — " The Log-Cabin." — His Marriage. — His Wed- 
ding-Tour. — He cuts up Fashions and Opinions. — His Activity in the 
Campaign of 1840. — He asked for no Office. 

HORACE had now wandered about, as a Yankee 
would say, " pretty considerably." He had 
lived cheaply, dressed poorly, worked hard, and laid 
up little ; he had been laughed at by his fellow- 
" typos;" accounted a runaway apprentice by such 
men as Judge Sterritt and David Hale; and on the 
occasion of his landlord's moving on the first day of 
May, as all poor *' folk " do in " Gotham," he had got 
into the watch-house. I must give his own description 
of this case, as it seems to have been about the first 
piece he wrote in New York ; for it was published in 
" The Spirit of the Times," May 5, 1832 : — 

" Messrs. Editors, — Hear me you shall, pity me 

74 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 75 

you must, while I proceed to give a short account of 
the dread calamities which this vile habit of turiiiiig 
the whole city upside-down, 'tother side out, and wrong 
side before, on the 1st of May, has brought down on 
my devoted head. 

" You must know, that, having resided but a few 
months in your city, I was totally ignorant of the 
existence of said custom. So, on the morning of the 
eventful, and to me disastrous day, I rose, according 
to immemorial usage, at dying-away of the last echo 
of the breakfast-bell, and soon found myself seated 
over my coffee, and my good landlady exercising her 
powers of volubility (no weak ones) apparently in my 
behalf; but so deep was the revery in which my half- 
awakened brain was then engaged, that I did not catch 
a single idea from the whole of her discourse. I 
smiled, and said, ' Yes, ma'am,' ' Certainly, ma'am,' 
at each pause; and, having speedily despatched my 
breakfast, sallied immediately out, and proceeded to 
attend to the business which engrossed my mind. 
Dinner-time came, but no time for dinner; and it was 
late before I was at liberty to wend my way, over 
wheel-barrows, barrels, and all manner of obstructions, 
towards my boarding-house. All here was still : but, 
by the help of my night-keys, I soon introduced myself 
to my chamber, dreaming of nothing but sweet repose ; 
when, horrible to relate, my ears were instantaneously 



76 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

saluted by a most piercing female shriek, proceeding 
exactly from my own bed, or at least from the place 
where it should have been ; and scarcely had sufficient 
time elapsed for my hair to bristle on my head before 
the shriek was answered by the loud vociferations of a 
ferocious mastiff in the kitchen beneath, and re-echoed 
by the outcries of half a dozen inmates of the house, 
and these again succeeded by the rattle of the watch- 
man ; and the next moment there was a round dozen 
of them (besides the dog) at my throat, and command- 
ing me to tell them instantly what the devil all this 
meant. 

" ' You do well to ask that,' said I as soon as I could 
speak, ' after falling upon me in this fashion in my own 
chamber.' 

" ' Oh ! take him off,' said the one who assumed to 
be the master of the house. * Perliaps he's not a thief, 
after all ; but, being too tipsy for starlight, he has 
made a mistake in trying to find his lodgings.' And, in 
spite of all my remonstrances, I was forthwith marched 
off to the watch-house to pass the remainder of the 
night. In the morning I narrowly escaped commit- 
ment on the charge of ' burglary witli intent to steal ' 
(I verily believe it would have gone hard with me if 
the witnesses could have been got there at tliat un- 
seasonable hour) ; and I was finally discharged with a 
solemn admonition to guard for the future against 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 77 

intoxication. Think of that, sir, for a member of the 
Cold-water Society ! 

" I spent the next day in unravelling tlie mystery, 
and found that my landlord had removed his goods 
and chattels to another part of the city on the estab- 
lished day, supposing me to be previously acquainted 
and satisfied with his intention of so doing, and another 
family had immediately taken his place ; of which 
changes my absence of mind, and absence from dinner, 
had kept me ignorant, and thus had I been led blind- 
fold into a * Comedy (or rather tragedy) of Errors.' 
" Your unfortunate 

"Timothy Wiggins." 

There is a kind of self-complacency in one's going 
into business for one's self, somewhat like what a 
young man feels when he gets married. Before he 
was but half a man, or what Dr. Franklin called " the 
half of a pair of scissors : " now he is the head of a 
family. So while a journeyman, though it be all well 
enough, yet he is only an irresponsible agent ; but 
now, being the head, boss, or responsible man of a 
concern, he cannot but feel himself to be " some- 
body." 

Mr. Greeley says, " Having been fairly driven to 
New York two or three years earlier than I deemed 
desirable, I was in like manner impelled to undertake 
7* 



78 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

the responsibilities of business while still in my twenty- 
second year." 

A young man by the name of Story, a friend of 
Greeley's, and but twenty-three years old, had imbibed 
the idea of starting a printing-office. Story was the 
son of a poor widow : but he knew more of the crooks 
and turns of New York than Horace did ; for he had 
worked on " The Spirit of the Times," and thus became 
acquainted with the sporting gentry, and with a Mr. 
Sylvester, a leading broker, and seller of lottery-tickets, 
in Wall Street ; and through him and Dr. W. Beach 
and a Dr. Shepard (who had some money fall to him) 
Story was induced to start a cheap daily newspaper, and 
offered to take in Horace as a partner. Horace hesi- 
tated, as he had but little capital, having aided his 
father by sending him all that he could well spare ; 
but was finally induced to go into the business with 
Story, whose enthusiasm was considerable. So the 
new firm, Story and Greeley, published " The Morning 
Post," a one-cent daily. The first number appeared 
Jan. 15, 1833. 

This paper failed. Then Mr. Greeley worked some 
on " The Commercial Advertiser," and was offered a 
partnership there, but declined it. His partner, Mr. 
Story, was drowned about this time. His place was 
taken by a Mr. Winchester, a brother-in-law of 
Story. 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 79 

March 22, 1834, they issued " The New-Yorker." 
Mr. Greeley was the editor. It was a large, fair, 
and cheap weekly folio. Mr. Greeley, in his " Recol- 
lections of a Busy Life," says, " Though not calcu- 
lated to enlist partisanship or excite enthusiasm, it 
was at length extensively liked and read. It began 
with scarcely a dozen subscribers ; these steadily 
increased to nine thousand : and it might, under 
better business-management (perhaps I should add, 
at a more favorable time), have proved profitable 
and permanent. That it did not was mainly owing 
to these circumstances: 1. It was not extensively 
advertised at the start, and at least annually there- 
after, as it should have been. 2. It was never really 
published, though it had half a dozen nominal pub- 
lishers in succession. 3. It was sent to subscribers 
on credit ; and a large share of them never paid for it, 
and never will ; while the cost of collecting from others 
ate up the proceeds. 4. The machinery of railroads, 
expresses, news-companies, news-offices, &c., whereby 
literary periodicals are now disseminated, did not then 
exist. I believe that just such a paper issued to-day, 
properly published and advertised, would obtain a 
circulation of a hundred thousand in less time than 
was required to give ' The New-Yorker ' scarcely a 
tithe of that aggregate, and would make money for 
its owners, instead of nearly starving them as mine 



80 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

did. I was worth at least fifteen hundred dollars 
when it was started. I worked hard and lived fru- 
gally throughout its existence. It subsisted for the 
first two years on the profits of our job-work ; when I, 
deeming it established, dissolved with my partner, 
he taking the jobbing-business, and I ' The New- 
Yorker,' which held its own pretty fairly thenceforth 
till the commercial revulsion of 1837 swept over the 
land, whelming it and me in the general ruin. I had 
married in 1836 (July 5), deeming myself worth 
five thousand dollars, and the master of a business 
which would thenceforth yield me for my labor at 
least a thousand dollars per annum ; but instead 
of that, or of any income at all, I found myself 
obliged throughout 1837 to confront a net loss of 
about a hundred dollars per week, — my income 
averaging a hundred dollars, and my expenses two 
hundred dollars. It was in vain that I appealed to 
delinquents to pay up. Many of them migrated ; 
some died ; others were so considerate as to order the 
paper stopped, but very few of these paid : and I 
struggled on against a steadily-rising tide of adversity 
that might have appalled a stouter heart. Often 
did I call on this or that friend with intent to 
solicit a small loan to meet some demand that could 
no longer be postponed nor evaded, and, after wast- 
ing a precious hour, leave him, utterly unable to 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 81 

broach the loathsome topic. I have borrowed five 
hundred dollars of a broker late on Saturday, and 
paid him five dollars for the use of it till Monday- 
morning, when I somehow contrived to return it. 
Most gladly would I have terminated the struggle by 
a surrender: but, if I had failed to pay my notes 
continually falling due, I must have paid money for 
my weekly supply of paper ; so that would have 
availed nothing. To have stopped my journal (for 
I could not give it away) would have left me in 
debt, besides my notes for paper — from fifty cents to 
two dollars each — to at least three thousand subscrib- 
ers who had paid in advance ; and that is the worst 
kind of bankruptcy. If any one would have taken 
my business and debts off my hands upon my giv- 
ing him my note for two thousand dollars, I would 
have jumped at the chance, and tried to work out the 
debt by setting type if nothing better offered. If it 
be suggested that my whole indebtedness was at no 
time more than five thousand to seven thousand 
dollars, I have only to say that even a thousand 
dollars of debt is ruin to him who feels keenly 
his obligation to fulfil every engagement, yet is ut- 
terly without the means of so doing, and who finds 
himself dragged each week a little deeper into hope- 
less insolvency. To be hungry, ragged, and penni- 
less, is not pleasant ; but this is nothing to the horrors 



82 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

of bankruptcy. All the wealth of the Rothschilds 
would be a poor recompense for a five-years' struggle 
with the consciousness that you had taken the money 
or property of trusting friends, — promising to return 
or pay for it when required, — and had betrayed their 
confidence through insolvency. 

" I dwell on this point ; for I would deter others 
from entering that place of torment. Half the 
young men in the country, with many old enough to 
know better, would ' go into business ' — that is, 
into debt — to-morrow if they could. Most poor 
men are so ignorant as to envy the merchant or 
manufacturer, whose life is an incessant struggle 
with pecuniary difficulties ; who is driven to con- 
stant ' shinning ; ' and who, from month to month, 
barely evades that insolvency, which, sooner or later, 
overtakes most men in business : so that it has- been 
computed that but one in twenty of them achieves a 
pecuniary success. For my own part, — and I speak 
from sad experience, — I would rather be a convict in 
a State prison, a slave in a rice-swamp, than to pass 
through life under the harrow of debt. Let no 
young man misjudge himself unfortunate, or truly 
poor, so long as he has the full use of his limbs and 
faculties, and is substantially free from debt. Hun- 
ger, cold, rags, hard work, contempt, suspicion, 
unjust reproach, are disagreeable ; but debt is infi- 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 83 

iiitely worse than them all. And, if it had pleased 
God to spare either or all of my sons to be the sup- 
port and solace of my declining years, the lesson 
which I should have most earnestly sought to im- 
press upon them is, ' Never run into debt. Avoid 
pecuniary obligation as you would pestilence or 
famine. If you have but fifty cents, and can get no 
more for a week, buy a peck of corn, parch it, and 
live on it, rather than owe any man a dollar.' Of 
course, I know that some men must do business that 
involves risks, and must often give notes and other 
obligations ; and I do not consider him really in debt 
who can lay his hands directly on the means of pay- 
ing, at some little sacrifice, all he owes. I speak 
of real debt, — that which involves risk or sacrifice 
on the one side, obligation and dependence on the 
other ; and I say, ' From all such let every youth 
humbly pray God to preserve him evermore.' " 

This shows Mr. Greeley's honesty ; for he made 
good every dollar he owed to the subscribers of " The 
New-Yorker." He complained, and justly, of some 
of his subscribers, in the following language : " I 
stopped ' The New-Yorker ' Sept. 20, 1841, and shut 
up its books, whereon were inscribed some ten thousand 
dollars, owed me in sums of from one to ten dollars 
each by men to whose service I had devoted the best 
years of my life, — years that, though full of labor and 



84 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

frugal care, might have been happy, liad they not been 
made wretched by those men's dishonesty." 

Mr. Greeley's experience in this paper was that 
only which many others have had who have ever been 
guilty of publishing a paper. Hence his advice, above 
quoted, should be treasured up by every young man 
who attempts to start a new paper. 

A specimen or two of his articles and rencounters 
while editor of " The New-Yorker " may interest the 
reader. In an article entitled " Editorial Luxuries " 
he wrote, " We love not the ways of that numerous 
class of malecontents who are perpetually findhig fault 
with their vocation, and endeavoring to prove them- 
selves the most miserable dogs in existence. If they 
really think so, why under the sun do they not aban- 
don their present evil ways, and endeavor to hit upon 
something more endurable ? Nor do we deem these 
grumblers more plentiful among the brethren of 
the quill than in other professions, simply because 
the groanings uttered through the press are more 
widely circulated than when merely breathed to the 
uight-air of some un sympathizing friend who forgets 
all about them the next minute. But we do think 
the whole business is in most ridiculously bad taste. 
An apostle teaches us of ' groanings which cannot be 
uttered : ' it would be a great relief to readers if 
editorial groanings were of this sort. Now, we pride 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 85 

ourselves rather on the delights of our profession ; 
and we rejoice to say that we find them neither few 
nor inconsiderable. There is one which even now 
flitted across our path, which, to tell the truth, was 
rather above the average; in fact, so good, that we 
cannot afford to monopolize it,* even though we shall 
be constrained to allow our reader a peep behind the 
curtain. So here it is : — 

[Scene. — Editorial Sanctum. Editor solus ; i.e., immersed ia 
thought and newspapers, with a journal in one hand, busily 
spoiling white paper with the other; only two particular 
friends talking to him at each elbow. Devil calls for " copy " at 
momentary intervals. Enter a butternut-colored gentleman, 
who bows most emphatically.] 

" Gent. — Are you the editor of ' The New-Yorker,' 
sir ? 

" Editor. — The same, sir, at your service. 

" Gent. — Did you write this, sir ? 

" Editor. — ( Takes his scissored extract, and reads.") 
' So, when we hear the brazen vender of quack- 
remedies boldly trumpeting his miraculous cures, or 
the announcement of the equally impudent experi- 
menter on public credulity (Goward) who announces 
that he " teaches music in six lessons, and half a 
dozen distinct branches of science in as many weeks," 
we may be grieved, and even indignant, that such 



86 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

palpable deceptions of the simple and unwary should 
not be discountenanced and exposed.' 

" That reads like me, sir. I do not remember the 
passage ; but, if you found it in the editorial columns 
of ' The New-Yorker,' I certainly did write it. 

" Gent. — It was in No. 15, ' The March of Hum- 
bug.' 

" Editor, — Ah ! now I recollect it : there is no mis- 
take in my writing that article. 

" G-ent, — Did you allude to me, sir, in those re- 
marks ? 

'' Editor. — You will perceive that the name 
' Go ward ' has been introduced by yourself: there 
is nothing of the kind in my paper. 

" Gent. — Yes, sir ; but I wish to know whether 
you intended those remarks to apply to me. 

" Editor. — Well, sir, without pretending to recol- 
lect exactly what J may have been thinking of while 
writing an article three months ago, I will frankly 
say, that I think I must have had you in my eye 
while penning that paragraph. 

" Gent. — Well, sir, do you know that such re- 
marks are grossly unjust and impertinent to me ? 

" Editor. — I know nothing of you, sir, but from 
the testimony of friends, and your own advertisement 
in the papers ; and these combine to assure me that 
you are a quack. 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 87 

" Gent. — That is what my enemies say, sir ; but 
if you examine my certificates, sir, you will know the 
contrary. 

" Editor. — I am open to conviction, sir. 

" Cient. — Well, sir, I liave been advertising in 
' The Traveller ' for some time, and have paid them a 
great deal of money ; and here they come out this 
week and abuse me: so I have done with them. And 
now, if you will say you will not attack me in this 
fashion, I will patronize you (holding out some tempt- 
ing advertisements). 

" Editor, — Well, sir, I shall be very happy to ad- 
vertise for you ; but I can give no pledge as to the 
course I shall feel bound to pursue. - 

" Gent. — Then I suppose you will continue to call 
me a quack. 

" Editor. — I do not know that I am accustomed to 
attack my friends and patrons ; but, if I have occasion 
to speak of you at all, it shall be in such terms as my 
best judgment shall dictate. 

" Gent. — Then I am to understand you as my 
enemy ? 

" Editor. — Understand me as you please, sir : I 
shall endeavor to treat you and all men with fairness. 

" Gent. — But do you suppose I am going to pay 
money to those who ridicule me, and hold me up as a 
quack ? 



88 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

" Editor. — You will pay it where you please, sir : I 
must enjoy my opinions. 

" Gent. — Well, but is a man to be judged by what 
his enemies say of him ? Every man has his enemies. 

" Editor. — I hope not, sir : I trust I have not an 
enemy in the world. 

" Gent. — Yes, you have : I'm your enemy, and 
the enemy of every one who misrepresents me ! I can 
get no justice from the press, except among the penny 
dailies. I'll start a paper myself before a year. I'll 
show that some folks can edit newspapers as well as 
others. 

'' Editor. — The field is open, sir : go ahead ! '' 

[Exit in a rage Rev. J. K Goward, teacher (in six lessons) of 
every thing.] 

While publishing " The New-Yorker," Mr. Greeley 
tried his hand at poetry. He has published in all some 
forty poems, about half of which appeared in " The 
New-Yorker." The following was composed on the 
death of William Wirt : — 

Rouse not the muffled drum, 
Wake not the martial trumpet's mournful sound, 
For him whose mighty voice in death is dumb ; 
Who, in the zenith of his high renown, 

To the grave went down. 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 89 

Invoke no cannon's breath 
To swell the requiem o'er his ashes poured : 
Silently bear him to the house of death. 
The aching hearts by whom he was adored 

He won not with the sword. 

No ! let affection's tear 
Be the sole tribute to his memory paid : 
Earth has no monument so justly dear 
To souls like his in purity arrayed, 

Never to fade. 



I loved thee, patriot chief! 
I battled proudly 'neath thy banner pure : 
Mine is the breast of woe, the heart of grief, 
Which suffer on, unmindful of a cure, — 

Proud to endure. 



But vain the voice of wail 
For thee from this dim vale of sorrow fled : 
Earth has no spell whose magic shall not fail 
To light the gloom that shrouds thy narrow bed. 

Or woo thee from the dead. 



Then take thy long repose 
Beneath the shelter of the deep green sod : 
Death but a brighter halo o'er thee throws : 
Thy fame, thy soul, alike have spurned the clod. 

Rest thee in God ! 
8* 



90 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

One other poem we select, which was published in 
" The Southern Literary Messenger," August, 1840 : — 

THE FADED STARS. 

I mind the time when heaven's high dome 

Woke in my soul a wondrous thrill ; 
When every leaf in Nature's tome 

Bespoke creation's marvels still ; 
When mountain-cliff and sweeping glade, 

As Morn unclosed her rosy bars, 
Woke joys intense : but nought e'er bade 

My heart leap up, like you, bright stars ! 

Calm ministrants to God's high glory, 

Pure gems around his burning throne, 
Mute watchers o'er man's strange, sad story 

Of crime and woe through ages gone, 
*Twas yours the mild and hallowing spell 

That lured me from ignoble gleams, 
Taught me where sweeter fountains swell 

Than ever bless the worldling's dreams. 

How changed was life ! — a waste no more 

Beset by want and pain and wrong : 
Earth seemed a glad and fairy shore. 

Vocal with Hope's inspiring song. 
But, ye bright sentinels of heaven. 

Far glories of night's radiant sky. 
Who, as ye gemmed the brow of even, 

Has ever deemed man born to die ? 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 91 

*Tis faded now, that wondrous grace 

That once on heaven's forehead shone : 
I read no more in Nature's face 

A soul responsive to my own. 
A dimness on my eye and spirit 

Stern Time has cast in hurrying by : 
Few joys my hardier yearg inherit ; 

And leaden dulness rules the sky. 

Yet mourn not I : a stern, high duty 

Now nerves my arm, and fires my brain. 
Perish the dream of shapes of beauty, 

So that this strife be not in vain I 
To war on fraud intrenched with power, 

On smooth pretence and specious wrong, — 
This task be mine, though Fortune lower ; 

For this be banished sky and song. 

Mr, Greeley announced his marriage in " The New- 
Yorker " of July 16, 1836, in the following language : 
" In Immanuel Church, Warrenton, N.C., on Tues- 
day morning, 5th inst., by Rev. William Norwood, 
Mr. Horace Greeley, editor of ' The New-Yorker,' to 
Miss Mary Y. Cheney of Warrenton, formerly of this 
city." 

The bride had been a teacher in New York, and 
had removed to North Carolina in the exercise of that 
profession. He became acquainted with her at the 
Graham boarding-house, of which mention will be 
made hereafter. 



92 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

Mr. Greeley turned his wedding-tour to good advan- 
tage for his paper. He had never visited Wasliington 
before. He was very favorably impressed witli the 
Senate, of which he wrote the following for his paper: 
" The Senate of the United States is unsurpassed in 
intellectual greatness by any body of fifty men ever 
convened is a trite observation. A phrenologist 
would fancy a strong confirmation of his doctrines in 
the very appearance of the Senate : a physiognomist 
would find it. The most striking person on the floor 
is Mr. Clay, who is incessantly in motion, and whose 
spare, erect form betrays an easy dignity approaching 
to majesty, and a perfect gracefulness such as I have 
never seen equalled. His countenance is intelligent, 
and indicative of character ; but a glance at his 
figure, while his face was completely averted, would 
give assurance that he was no common man. Mr. 
Calhoun is one of the plainest men, and certainly 
the dryest, hardest speaker I ever listened to. The 
flow of his ideas reminded me of a barrel filled with 
pebbles, each of which must find great difficulty in 
escaping, from the very solidity and number of those 
pressing upon it, and impeding its natural motion. 
Mr. Calhoun, though far from being a handsome, 
is still a very remarkable personage ; but Mr. Benton 
has the least intellectual countenance I ever saw on a 
senator. Mr. Webster was not in his place. 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 93 

"The best speech was that of Mr. Crittenden of 
Kentucky. That man is not appreciated so highly as 
he should and must be. He has a rough readiness, a 
sterling good sense, a republican manner and feeling, 
and a vein of biting though homely satire, which will 
yet raise him to distinction in the national councils." 

Perhaps the most startling and far-reaching of Mr. 
Greeley's articles, while editor of"" The New-Yorker," 
was written in 1837, on the parade made on the 4th 
of July, It is entitled " Tyranny of Opinion : " — 

" The great pervading evil of our social condition 
is the worship and the bigotry of opinion. While the 
theory of our political institutions asserts or implies 
the absolute freedom of the human mind, the right, 
not only of free thought and discussion, but of the 
most unrestrained action thereon, within the wide 
boundaries prescribed by the laws of tlie land, yet 
the practical commentary upon this noble text is as 
discordant as imagination can conceive. Beneath the 
thin veil of a democracy more free than that of 
Athens in her glory we cloak a despotism more per- 
nicious and revolting than that of Turkey or China. 
It is the despotism of opinion. Whoever ventures to 
propound opinions strikingly at variance with those 
of the majority must be content to brave obloquy, 
contempt, and persecution. If political, they exclude 
him from public employment and trust; if religious, 



94 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

from social intercourse and general regard, if not 
from absolute rights. However moderately heretical 
in his political views, he cannot be a justice of the 
peace, an officer of the customs, or a lamplighter; 
while, if he be positively and frankly sceptical in his 
theology, grave judges pronounce him incompetent to 
give testimony in courts of justice, though his charac- 
ter for veracity be indubitable. That is but a narrow 
view of the subject which ascribes all this injustice to 
the errors of parties or individuals : it flows naturally 
from the vice of the age and country, — the tyranny 
of opinion. It can never be wholly rectified until the 
whole community shall be brought to feel and 
acknowledge that the only security for public liberty 
is to be found in the absolute and unqualified free- 
dom of thought and expression, confining penal conse- 
quences to acts only which are detrimental to the 
welfare of society. 

" The philosophical observer from abroad may well 
be astounded by the gross inconsistencies which are 
presented by the professions and the conduct of our 
people. Thousands will flock together to drink in 
the musical periods of some popular disclaimer on 
the inalienable rights of man, the inviolability of the 
immunities granted us by the constitution and laws, 
and the invariable reverence of freemen for the 
majesty of law. They go away delighted with our 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 95 

institutions, the orator, and themselves. The next 
day they may be engaged in lynching some unlucky 
individual who has fallen under their sovereign 
displeasure, breaking up a public meeting of an 
obnoxious cast, or tarring and feathering some unfor- 
tunate lecturer or propagandist whose views do not 
square with their own, but who has precisely the 
same right to enjoy and propagate his opinions, how- 
ever erroneous, as though he inculcated nothing but 
what every one knows and acknowledges already. 
The shamelessness of this incongruity is sickening ; 
but it is not confined to this glaring exhibition. The 
sheriff, town-clerk, or constable, who finds the politi- 
cal majority in his district changed either by immi- 
gration or the course of events, must be content to 
change too, or be hurled from his station. Yet what 
necessary connection is there between his politics and 
and his office ? Why might it not as properly be 
insisted that a town-officer should be six feet high or 
have red hair, if the majority were so distinguished, 
as that he should think with them respecting the men 
in high places and the measures projected or opposed 
by them? and how does the proscription of a man 
in any way for obnoxious opinions differ from the 
most glaring tyranny ? " 

"The New-Yorker" was continued seven years; 
and during those seven years, Mr. Greeley says. 



96 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

" seven co-partners in its publication withdrew from 
the concern." On the whole, Mr. Greeley had a 
hard time while he conducted this paper. He ap- 
pealed to his patrons once and again to pay up ; 
but it was of no avail, as has been already stated by 
him. The paper was a good one, and well conducted ; 
but its owner and editor were but poorly paid. 

During a part of the time he edited " The New- 
Yorker," Mr. Greeley was also editor of " The Jeffer- 
sonian," a Whig paper, published in Albany, N.Y. 
His labors while he conducted these two papers were 
most abundant. As soon as he had got ready " The 
New-Yorker " for the press, he hastened to the boat 
for Albany ; where, after spending a sleepless or nearly 
sleepless night, he arrived in Albany to work hard tlie 
next day in editing " The Jeffersonian." 

Next came " The Log-Cabin." Those of us who 
remember that overwhelming avalanche of 1840, 
when the Whigs rallied from one end of the country 
to the other and took possession of the government 
by storm, know what " The Log-Cabin " then meant. 

The Democrats had had the government for years. 
Andrew Jackson had served in the presidency two 
terms ; Martin Van Buren, one ; and now, by con- 
certed action, the Whigs made one desperate effort, 
determined on success. They nominated for presi- 
dent William Henry Harrison of Ohio. In this they 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 97 

manifested great shrewdness ; for had they selected 
Henry Clay or Daniel Webster, or any other then, 
active politician, everybody knew too much about 
them, and every mouth would have been filled with 
their faults. But, when they selected Gen. Harrison, 
no one of the younger generation knew any thing 
about him. The Democrats said he was a feeble old 
man, who had dwelt at North Bend, living on hard 
cider in a log-cabin, where he had been buried thirty 
years. The Whigs took, up the glove thus thrown 
down by tlieir opponents, and made " Log-Cabin " 
and "Hard Cider" their watchwords, and notwith- 
standing all the ridicule thrown upon Harrison, and 
all the patronage of the government that the party 
in power could use, elected Harrison to the presi- 
dency. 

Harrison was the hero of the battle of Tippeca- 
noe. 

With him they nominated for vice-president John 
Tyler of Virginia ; and making their songs on 

" Tippecanoe and Tyler too," 

as just said, they took the country as by storm. 

As I have before said, Martin Yan Buren had been 
considered the great magician, the most skilful 
" wire-puller," of the land. The people were tired 
of this kind of manoeuvring. They had just passed 



98 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

through the crisis of 1837-8, and were sore under 
those commercial disasters : consequently they were 
prepared for a change. Now the hero of Tippe- 
canoe and the farmer of North Bend was pitted 
against the wily Dutchman and the patronage of 
the White House; and the latter was laughed at, 
joked, jeered, and ridiculed out of a second term. 

I cannot give the part which Mr. Greeley acted in 
this election of Harrison better than by selecting the 
language of Mr. Parton in his Life of Mr. Greeley, 
p. 181 : " The man who contributed most to keep 
alive and increase the popular enthusiasm, the man 
who did most to feed that enthusiasm with the sub- 
stantial fuel of fact and argument, was, beyond all 
question, Horace Greeley. 

" On the 2d of May the first number of ' The Log- 
Cabin' appeared, by H. Greeley and Co. ; a weekly paper, 
to be published simultaneously at Newark and Albany 
at fifty cents for the campaign of six months. It was 
a small paper, about half the size of the present 
' Tribune ; ' but it was conducted with wonderful 
spirit, and made an unprecedented hit. Of the first 
number an edition of twenty thousand was printed, 
which Mr. Greeley's friends thought a far greater 
number than would be sold ; but the edition vanished 
from the counter in a day. Eight thousand more 
were struck off: they were sold in a morning. Four 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 99 



thousand more were printed ; and still the demand 
seemed unabated. A further supply of six thousand 
was printed, and the types were then distributed. In 
a few days, however, the demand became so urgent, 
that the number was re-set, and an edition of ten 
thousand struck off. Altogether, forty-eight thousand 
of the first number were sold. Subscribers came 
pouring in at the rate of seven hundred a day. The 
list lengthened in a few weeks to sixty thousand 
names, and kept increasing till the weekly issue was 
between eighty and ninety thousand. Horace Greeley 
and Co. were really overwhelmed with their success. 
They had made no preparations for such an enormous 
increase of business ; and they were troubled to hire 
clerks and folders fast enough to get their stupendous 
edition into the mails. 

*' ' The Log-Cabin ' is not dull reading, even now, 
after the lapse of years, though the men and the 
questions of that day are, most of them, dead ; but 
then it was devoured with an eagerness which even 
those who remember it can hardly realize." 

Those were stirring times, and " The Log-Cabin " 
was a stirring paper. Mr. Greeley announced its 
purpose and object in the following language : — 

" ' The Log-Cabin ' will be a zealous and unwaver- 
ing advocate of the rights, interests, and prosperity of 
our whole country, but especially those of the hardy 



100 LIFE OF HOEACE GEEELEY. 

subdiiers and cultivators of her soil. It will be the 
advocate of the cause of the log-cabiu against that 
of the custom-house and presidential palace. It 
will be an advocate of the interests of unassuming 
industry against the schemes and devices of function- 
aries ' dressed in a little brief authority,' whose salaries 
are trebled in value whenever labor is forced to beg 
for employment at three or four shillings a day. It 
will be the advocate of a sound, uniform, adequate 
currency for our whole country, against the visionary 
projects and ruinous experiments of the official 
Dousterswivels of the day, who commenced by prom- 
ising prosperity, abundance, and plenty of gold, as the 
sure result of their policy ; and, lo ! we have its 
issues in disorganization, bankruptcy, low wages, and 
treasury rags. In fine, it will be the advocate of 
freedom, improvement, and of national reform, by 
the election of Harrison and Tyler, the restoration of 
purity to the government, of efficiency to the public 
will, and of better times to the people. Such are the 
objects and scope of * The Log-Cabin.' " 

This paper was nobly managed by Mr. Greeley, and 
he fulfilled all his promises respecting it. " The 
Log-Cabin," and the songs that accompanied it, 
elected Gen. Harrison. Those songs were graphic. 
The writer learned, and has not forgotten them yet. 
They were like this : — 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 101 

" Little Van is a used-up man. 

Tippecanoe and Tyler too. 
From the White House, now, Matty, turn out, turn out I 
From the White House, now, Matty, turn out, turn out ! 

Since there you have been 

No peace we have seen : 
So, Matty, now please to turn out, turn out 1 
So, Matty, now please to turn out ! 
Make way for old Tip ! turn out, turn out 1 

'Tis the people's desire 

Their choice he shall be : 
So, Martin Van Buren, turn out, turn out I 
So, Martin Van Buren, turn out, turn out ! '* 

111 his Life of Mr. Greeley, Mr. Partoii gives the 
following witty story as no one else could give it, and 
says " it is literally true." It may be found on p. 
188 of the Life published by James R. Osgood & Co. 
It shows how Mr. Greeley was absorbed in the Har- 
rison campaign. It is named '' The Cake-Basket." 
" Time, Sunday evening ; scene, the parlor of a 
friend's house ; company numerous and political, 
except the ladies, who are gracious and hospitable. 
Mr. Greeley is expected to tea, but does not come, 
and the meal is transacted without him. Tea over, he 
arrives, and plunges headlong into a conversation on 
the currency. The lady of the house thinks he had 
better take some tea, but cannot get a hearing on the 
subject ; is distressed, puts the question at length, and 

9* 



102 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

lias her invitation hurriedly declined, — brushed 
aside, in fact, with a wave of the hand. 

" ^ Take a cruller, any way,' said she, handing him a 
cake-basket containing a dozen or so of those unspeak- 
able Dutch indigestibles. The expounder of the 
currency, dimly conscious that a large object was 
approaching him, puts forth his hands, still vehe- 
mently talking, and takes, not a cruller, but the cake- 
basket, and deposits it in his lap. The company are 
inwardly convulsed ; and some of the weaker mem- 
bers retire to the adjoining apartment, the expounder 
continuing his harangue, unconscious of their emo- 
tions or its cause. Minutes elapse. His hands, in 
their wandering through the air, come in contact 
with the topmost cake, which they take and break. 
He begins to eat, and eats and talks, talks and eats, 
till he has finished a cruller. Then he feels for 
anotlier, and eats that, and goes on, slowly consuming 
the contents of the basket till the last crumb is gone. 
The company look on amazed, and the kind lady of 
the house fears for the consequences. She has heard 
that cheese is an antidote to indigestion. Taking the 
empty cake-basket from his lap, she silently puts a 
plate of cheese in its place, hoping instinct will guide 
his hand aright. The experiment succeeds. Gradu- 
ally the blocks of white new cheese disappear. She 
removes the plate. No ill consequences follow. 



COMMENCES BUSINESS. 103 

Those who saw this sight are fixed in the belief that 
Mr. Greeley was not then nor has since become 
aware that on that evening he partook of sustenance." 
No man did more in that memorable campaign of 
1840 to elect Harrison than Horace Greeley. But 
he asked for no office, and, to the shame of the party 
and the men elected by it, no office was offered 
him ; wliile so hungry were the party, having starved 
through twelve years under Andrew Jackson and 
Martin Van Buren, that they rushed upon their poor 
victim, Harrison, in such numbers, and with such 
impetuosity, that the good old man, who had lived in 
retirement for thirty years, succumbed in a single 
month. Had he been an old politician, used to the 
harness, skilled in trickery, regardless of promises, 
and making them to every applicant; or had all 
treated him as Horace did, — just let him alone, — 
Harrison might have lived to serve out his term, and 
John Tyler would never have served his. Whatever 
men may say of Mr. Greeley now, no man has been 
farther from seeking office all his life than this same 
man. 



CHAPTER YII. 

HORACE Greeley's temperance. 

Horace will not drink. — Aids in forming a Temperance Society. — His 
Opinion of Cider-Guzzling. — Liquor used by Everybody. — Why Cities 
always go for Liquor-Selling. — The Man in whom an Iceberg formed. 
— Horace foreshadows a Prohibitory Law. — Sylvester Graham. — Died 
of Chagrin. — Mr. Greeley's Grahamism. — Finds his Wife at the Graham 
Boarding-House. — On the Whole, he thmks favorably of eating more 
Fruit, and less Meat. 

WE find an excellent trait of character in him in 
his temperance. So many editors and so many- 
public men are intemperate, that, when we find one who 
has for a lifetime strictly followed the laws of temper- 
ance in all things, we ought to make a mark there, 
and place an exclamation-point. 

Mr. Greeley says, " On the first day of January, 
1824, while living in West Haven, Vt., I deliber- 
ately resolved to drink no more distilled liquors." 
Temperance societies had been formed in some places 
at that time, and he had lieard of persons who had 
resolved that they would drink no more liquor. He 
says, " The American Temperance Society was yet 

104 



HORACE Greeley's temperance. 105 

unknown, and did not adopt the principle of total 
abstinence from alcoholic beverages until 1833." 

The writer thinks Mr. Greeley is mistaken in this : 
at all events, he has now a series of temperance 
addresses which he delivered in various parts of Mas- 
sachusetts and New Hampshire in 1829 and 1830, 
wherein total abstinence is maintained and strongly 
inculcated as the " club of Hercules, with whicli the 
monster Intemperance is to be slain." At the time 
Mr. Greeley was in Vermont, he says, " Whiskey and 
tobacco were the universal luxuries — I might say, 
the poor man's only luxuries — in Vermont, as rum 
had been in New Hampshire." 

Cider was universally used. Apple-trees flourished 
and were almost universally cultivated in every 
clearing upon the new soil. Then, too, good peach- 
es were raised in these Northern States ; though now 
peach-trees have almost disappeared from among 
us. Cider being so abundant, it was a short cut to 
hotter and more stimulating drinks ; and multitudes 
easily crossed the bridge, and died paupers and drunk- 
ards. 

Mr. Greeley, in his " Recollections," says, " I believe 
I was five years old when my grandfather Woodburn's 
house in Londonderry was, one winter-day, filled with 
relatives, gathered in good part from Deering, Wind- 
ham, and from Vermont towns originally settled from 



106 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

the old hive, who, after dinner, departed in their 
sleighs to visit some other relative, taking our old 
folks with them, and leaving but three or four little 
boys of us to keep house till their return. A number 
of half-smoked cigars had been left on the mantel ; and 
some evil genius suggested to us tow-headed urchins 
that it would be smart and clever to indulge in a 
general smoke. Like older fools, we went in ; and I 
was soon the sickest mortal on the face of this planet. 
I cannot say as to my comrades in this folly ; but that 
half-inch of cigar-stump will last me all my life, though 
its years should outnumber Methuselah's. For a dec- 
ade thereafter it was often my filial duty to fill and 
light my mother's pipe when she had lain down for 
her after-dinner nap ; and she, having taken it, would 
hold it and talk till the fire had gone out, so that it 
must again be lighted and drawn till the tobacco well 
ignited. Hence I know, that, if I had not been proof 
against narcotic seduction, I should have learned to 
like the soothing weed. But I never used, nor wished 
to use, it as a sedative or a luxury, after my one 
juvenile and thoroughly conclusive experiment. From 
that hour to this, the chewing, smoking, or snuffing 
of tobacco has seemed to me, if not the most perni- 
cious, certainly the vilest, most detestable abuse of his 
corrupted sensual appetites whereof depraved man is 
capable." 



HOitACE GREELEY'S TEMPERANCE. 107 

When it is considered, that, in those days, everybody 
drank ; that at every friendly greeting and entertain- 
ment, at every meeting of neighbors for sociability, 
liquor was always produced, — it was wonderful that 
young Greeley escaped the general contagion. Well 
does the writer remember those days, when at every 
raising, every wedding, every burial, every ball, every 
ordination, and on every other occasion that called 
people together, the bottle was brought forward, and 
every one drank. This was not all ; for, if one were 
found who did not take his share of the poison, he was 
persuaded, joked, ridiculed, and laughed at, to draw or 
drive him into the wicked and foolish custom. Hence 
it required no ordinary degree of moral courage to re- 
sist this vast influence brought to bear upon one who 
was so singular in his habits as not to drink. 

Mr. Greeley, in giving an account of the ordination 
of Rev. Mr. Lord (afterwards president of Dartmouth 
College), said, "We had an ordination in Amherst, 
nearly fifty years ago, to the signal satisfaction of the 
great body of our people : and, according to my recol- 
lection, strong drink was more generally and bounti- 
fully dispensed than on any previous occasion ; bottles 
and glasses being set on tables in front of many farm- 
ers' houses as an invitation to those who passed on their 
way to or from the installation to stop and drink 
freely. We have worse liquor now than we had then ; 



108 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

and delirium tremens, apoplexy, palsy, &c., come 
sooner and oftener to those who use it : but our con- 
sumers of strong drink are a class, whereas they were 
then the whole people. The pious probably drank 
more discreetly than the ungodly ; but they all drank 
to their own satisfaction, and, I judge, more than was 
consistent with their personal good." 

Though Mr. Greeley at this early period never 
spoke of his resolve not to drink except in his 
father's family, yet it somehow became known in the 
neighborhood, where it excited, not curiosity only, but 
opposition ; so that, on one occasion, — the time of 
sheep-washing, — he was told to drink a glass of 
liquor, and, on his refusal, was held by two youngsters 
older and stronger than he, and it was turned into his 
mouth, and some of it forced down his throat. But 
even this personal assault did not cure him of his 
singularity ; for he still kept his resolution. 

Soon after his removal to Poultney, he says in his 
" Recollections," " I assisted in organizing the first 
temperance society ever formed in that town, perhaps 
the first in the county. It inhibited the use of dis- 
tilled liquors only ; so that I believe our first presi- 
dent died of intemperance a few years afterward. I 
recollect a story told at that time by our adversaries 
of a man who had joined the temperance society just 
organized in a neighboring township, and, dying soon 



109 

afterwards, had been subjected to an autopsy, which 
developed a cake of ice weighing several pounds, 
which had gradually formed and increased in his 
stomach as a result of his fanatical devotion to cold 
water. Alas that most of our facetious critics have 
since died, and no autopsy was needed to develop 
the cause of their departure ! A glance at each fiery 
proboscis, tliat irradiated even the cerements of the 
grave, was sufficient." 

Mr. Greeley well accounts for the fact that all our 
cities are far behind the country towns in temperance 
habits in the followino; lang:uao:e in his " RecoUec- 
tions : " " Total abstinence has never yet been popular 
in this nor in any other great city ; and, as liquor 
grows unfashionable in the country, it tends to be- 
come less and less so. A great city derives its subsist- 
ence and its profits from ministrations therein, not only 
to the real needs of the surrounding country, but to its 
baser appetites, its vices, as well ; and, as the country 
becomes less and less tolerant of immoral indul- 
gences and vicious aberrations, the gains of cities there- 
from, and their consequent interest therein, must 
steadily increase. Time was when the young man 
of means and social position, who shunned the haunts 
of the gamester, the wiles of the libertine, and never 
indulged in a drunken spree, was widely sneered at 
as a milksop, or detested as a calculating hypocrite. 



110 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

Sheridan's Joseph Surface admirably reflects the once 
popular appreciation of such absurd, fanatical Puri- 
tanism ; but the world grows wiser and (in an impor- 
tant sense) better. A great though silent change is 
wrought in public sentiment, which compels the 
vicious to conceal indulgences that they formerly 
paraded, and maintain an exterior decency which 
would once have exposed them to ridicule. Thou- 
sands, who formerly gratified their baser appetites 
without disguise or shame, now feel constrained, not 
to leave undone, but to keep unknown, by hieing to 
some great city, where no one's deeds or ways are 
observed or much regarded so long as he keeps out 
of the hands of the police, and there balance a year's 
compelled decorum by a week's unrestrained debauch- 
ery. Fifty years back, a jug would readily be filled 
with any designated liquor at almost any country 
store : now the devotee of alcoholic potations must 
usually send or take his demijohn to the most con- 
venient city, where it will at once be filled, and de- 
spatched to its impatient and thirsty owner. And so, 
as the liquor-interest grows weaker and weaker in the 
country, it becomes stronger and yet stronger in the 
cities, whose politics it fashions, whose government it 
governs, by virtue of its inherent strength and ap- 
prehensive activity; and thus the liquor-traffic has 
greater strength and vitality in our city to-day than it 
had twenty to forty years ago." 



Ill 



Always he has been thorough on temperance. As 
long ago as 1835 he wrote the following, which looks 
very strongly towards the prohibitory laws of 1872 : 
" Were we called upon to indicate simply the course 
which should be pursued for the eradication of this 
crying evil, our compliance would be a far easier 
matter. We would say unhesitatingly, that the vend- 
ing of alcohol, or of liquors of which alcohol forms a 
leading component, should be regulated by the laws 
which govern the sale of other insidious yet deadly 
poisons. It should be kept for sale only by druggists, 
and dealt out in small potions, and with like regard 
to the character and ostensible purpose of the appli- 
cant as in the case of its counterpart. But we must 
not forget that we are to determine simply what may 
be done by the friends of temperance for the advance- 
ment of the noble cause in which they are engaged, 
rather than what the more ardent of them (with 
whom we are proud to rank ourselves) would desire 
to see accomplished. We are to look at things as 
they are; and, in that view, all attempts to interdict 
the sale of intoxicating liquors in our hotels, our 
country stores, and our steamboats, in the present 
state of public opinion, must be hopelessly futile. 
The only available provision bearing on this branch 
of the traffic, which could be urged with the least 
prospect of success, is the imposition of a real license- 



112 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

tax, say from a hundred to ten hundred dollars per 
annum, which would have the effect of diminishing 
the evil by rendering less frequent and less universal 
the temptations which lead to it ; but even that, we 
apprehend, would meet with strenuous opposition 
from so large and influential a portion of the commu- 
nity as to render its adoption and efficiency extreme- 
ly doubtful." 

About 1831-2, Sylvester Graham became a lecturer 
upon his peculiar system. He had been educated for the 
ministry, and had been the pastor of a Presbyterian 
church in New Jersey. Many called him Dr. Graham ; 
but it is believed he never had any medical degree. He 
had considerable mind, possessed a fair amount of 
knowledge, was enthusiastic upon his hobby, extremely 
egotistical, and verily believed that Sylvester Graham 
was destined to change the habits of the world upon 
eatables and drinkables. When he had written out 
his lectures, and published them, he verily expected 
they would become a text-book in all our colleges and 
seminaries ; but, when the two ponderous volumes fell 
" still-born " from the press, the publisher failed, and 
Graham died of disappointment and chagrin. 

His system, as the writer remembers it, and as Mr. 
Greeley has stated it, was this : " He believed, there- 
fore taught, that health is the necessary result of obe- 
dience, disease of disobedience, to physical laws ; that 



HOEACB Greeley's temperance. 113 

all stimulants, whether alcoholic or narcotic, are per- 
nicious, and should be rejected, save, possibly, in those 
rare cases where one poison may be wisely employed 
to neutralize or expel another. He condemned tea and 
coffee, as well as tobacco, opium, and alcoholic pota- 
bles ; cider and beer equally with brandy and gin, save 
that the poison is more concentrated in the latter. 
He disapproved of all spices and condiments save 
(grudgingly) a very little salt ; and he held that more 
suitable and wholesome food for human beings than 
the flesh of animals can almost always be procured, 
and should be preferred. The bolting of meal, to 
separate its coarser from its finer particles, he also 
reprobated ; teaching that the ripe, sound berry of 
wheat or rye, being ground to the requisite fineness, 
should in no manner be sifted, but should be made 
into loaves, and eaten precisely as the millstones de- 
liver it. Such is, in brief, the ' Graham system,' as 
I heard it expounded in successive lectures by its 
author, and fortified by evidence, — reasoning which 
commanded my general assent. 

" A boarding-house was soon established, based on its 
principles ; and I became an inmate thereof, as well as 
of others afterward founded on the same general 
ideas ; though I never wholly rejected the use of meat. 
Tea I never cared for ; and I used none at all for a quar- 
ter of a century : now I sometimes take it in moderation 

10* 



114 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

when black and very good. Coffee had for years been 
my chief luxury ; coffee without breakfast being far 
preferable, to my taste, to breakfast without coffee : 
but, having drank a strong cup of it one evening at a 
festive board, I woke next morning to find my hand 
trembling ; and I at once said, ' No more coffee,' and 
have not drank it since. My taste gradually changed 
thereafter, so that I soon ceased to crave, and now 
thoroughly dislike, the beverage. And while I eat meat, 
and deem it, when unspoiled by decay or bad cookery, 
far less objectionable than hot bread, rancid butter, 
decayed fruits, wilted vegetables, and too many other 
contributions to our ordinary diet, I profoundly believe 
that there is better food obtainable by the great body 
of mankind than the butcher and the fisherman do or 
can supply ; and that a diet made up of sound grain 
(ground, but unbolted), ripe, undecayed fruits, and a 
variety of fresh, wholesome vegetables, with milk, but- 
ter, and cheese, and a very little of spices or condi- 
ments, will enable our grandchildren to live in the 
average far longer, and fall far less frequently into 
the hands of the doctors, than we do." 

Mr. Greeley continues as follows : — 

" My wife, whose acquaintance I made at the Gra- 
ham House, and who was long a more faithful, con- 
sistent disciple of Graham than I was, in our years of 
extreme poverty kept her house in strict accordance 



HORACE Greeley's temperance. 115 

with her convictions, never even deigning an expla- 
nation to her friends and relatives who from time to 
time visited and temporarily sojourned with us ; and, 
as politeness usually repressed complaint or inquiry 
on their part, their first experiences of a regimen 
which dispensed with all they deemed most appetizing 
could hardly be observed without a smile. Usually a 
day, or at most two, of beans and potatoes, boiled rice, 
puddings, bread and butter, with no condiment but 
salt, and never a pickle, was all they could abide : so, 
bidding her a kind adieu, each in turn departed to 
seek elsewhere a more congenial hospitality. 

" ' But what peculiar effects of a vegetable diet did 
you experience ? ' some will naturally ask. I answer 
generally, ' Much the same as a rum-drinker notes 
after a brief return to water-drinking exclusively. I 
first felt a quite perceptible shiking of animal spirits, 
a partial relaxation or depression of natural energies. 
It seemed as though I could not lift so much, jump so 
high, nor run so fast, as when I ate meat. After a 
time, this lowering of the tone of the physical system 
passed away, or became imperceptible : on the other 
hand, I had no feeling of repletion or over-fulness ; I 
had no headache, and scarcely an ache of any sort ; 
my health was stubbornly good ; and any cut or other 
flesh-wound healed more easily and rapidly than for- 
merly. Other things being equal, I judge that a strict 



116 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

vegetarian will live ten years longer than an habitual 
flesh-eater, while suffering, in the average, less than 
half so much from sickness as the carnivorous must. 
The simple fact that animals are often diseased when 
killed for food, and that the flesh of those borne in 
crowded cars from far inland, to be slaughtered for 
the sustenance of sea-board cities, is almost always 
and inevitably feverish and unwholesome, ought to be 
conclusive. 

" On the whole, I am convinced by the observation 
and experience of a third of a century that all public 
danger lies in the direction opposite to that of vege- 
tarianism ; that a thousand fresh Grahams let loose 
each year upon the public will not prevent the con- 
sumption, in the average, of far too much and too 
highly-seasoned animal food ; while all Goughs and 
Neal Dows that ever were or can be scared up will 
not deter the body politic from pouring down its 
throat a great deal more fire-water than is good for it. 
And, while I look with interest on all attempts to 
substitute American wines and malt liquors for the 
more concentrated and maddening decoctions of the 
still, I have noted no such permanent triumphs in 
the thousand past attempts to cast out big devils by 
the incantations of little ones as would give me rea- 
son to put faith in the principle, or augur success for 
this latest experiment." 



HOEACE GEEELEY'S TEMPEEANCE. 117 

No one can accuse Horace Greeley of ever hav- 
ing been intemperate either in eating or drinking. 
Would he not in this respect make a model presi- 
dent? Cannot all the temperance people, even the 
most radical of them, vote for him with a good con- 
science, if their desire for the triumph of this cause 
is paramount to that of party politics ? These are 
important questions for them to answer at the polls, 
— answer, not by words, by speeches, and newspaper 
articles, but by deeds ; for here they have an opportu- 
nity to manifest their love to the cause they advocate 
by casting their votes for a man who for a lifetime 
has espoused their cause. We shall see how much 
they really love this good cause. 



CHAPTER YIII. 



MR. GREELEY AND "THE TRIBUNE. 



Mr. Greeley had tried his Fortune with Several Journals. — He starts " The 
Tribune " Alone. — Takes a Partner. — Their Adaptedness to Each Other. 
— "The Tribune" a Success. — "Fanny Fern's " Adventure to get a 
Copy. — " The Tribune " a Whig Paper. — It attacks the New-York City 
Government ; also the Theatre-Goers. — Is pounced upon by the Other 
Papers. — Mr. Greeley justifies his Course towards John Tyler. — He tells 
what he wanted "The Tribune" to be from the first. — How Candi- 
dates for Public Favor are used. 

MR. GREELEY had now tried his fortune in 
various partnerships and papers, and in 1841, 
the time when he projected and started '• The Trib- 
une," was about even with the world. He had been 
honest, paid all his debts, and maintained a good 
character for uprightness and integrity. Upon these 
he started the paper. It was to be Whig, and cheap : 
these were to be its characteristics. Though there 
were then many papers in New York, yet there was 
none of this peculiar kind. There were Whig 
papers, like " The Courier and Enquirer" and " The 
Commercial Advertiser ; " but they were ten dollars 

118 



MR. GEEELEY AND "THE TRIBUNE." 119 

a year. There were also cheap papers, — "The Sig- 
nal," " Tatler," " Star," and " Sun ; " but no one of 
them was decidedly Whig. 

In some respects, events were unpropitious. Harri- 
son had just died, and gloom seemed to overcast the 
triumph of his election, as it began to be whispered 
that the party had got more than it bargained for by 
taking 

" Tippecanoe and Tyler too." 

But April 10, 1841, " The Tribune " made its appear- 
ance, " price one cent ; Horace Greeley editor and 
proprietor." It was headed with the dying words of 
Harrison : " I desire you to understand the true 

PRINCIPLES OF the GOVERNMENT. I WISH THEM CAR- 
RIED OUT. I ASK NOTHING MORE." 

Mr. Greeley spent the whole night in watching the 
coming-forth of the first number of " The Tribune." 
It was an unpropitious morning ; and some time after- 
wards Mr. Greeley wrote of it, " The leaden sky, 
the unseasonable wintriness, the general gloom, of 
that stormy day which witnessed the grand though 
mournful pageant whereby our city commemorated 
the blighting of a nation's hopes in the most untimely 
death of President Harrison, were not inaptly minia- 
tured in my own prospects and fortunes. Having 
devoted the seven preceding years almost wholly to 



120 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

the establishment of a weekly compend of literature, 
and intelligence ('The New-Yorker'), wherefrom, 
though widely circulated and warmly praised, I hud 
received no other return than the experience and 
wider acquaintance thence accruing, I entered upon 
my novel and most precarious enterprise, most slen- 
derly with the external means of commanding sub- 
sistence and success in its prosecution. With no 
partner or business-associate, with inconsiderable pe- 
cuniary resources, and only a promise from political 
friends of aid to the extent of two thousand dollars, 
of which but one-half was ever realized (and that 
long since repaid ; but the sense of obligation to the 
far-from- weal thy friend who made the loan is none the 
less fresh and ardent), I undertook the enterprise — 
at all times and under any circumstances hazardous 
— of adding one more to the already amply-extensive 
list of daily newspapers issued in this emporium, 
where the current expenses of such papers, already 
appalling, were soon to be doubled by rivalry, by stim- 
ulated competition, by the progress of business, the 
complications of interests, and especially by the gen- 
eral diffusion of the electric telegraph, and where at 
least nineteen out of every twenty attempts to estab- 
lish a new daily have proved disastrous failures. 
Manifestly the prospects of success in this case were 
far from flattering." 



MR. GREELEY AND " THE TRIBUNE." 121 

In one of the numbers of " The Log-Cabin," pub- 
lished the 3d of April, just after the death of Harri- 
son, the following notice appeared: — 

"* New- York Tribune.' 

" On Saturday, the tenth day of April instant, the sub- 
scriber will publish the first number of a new morning 
journal of politics, literature, and general intelligence. 

" ' The Tribune,' as its name imports, will labor to 
advance the interests of the people, and to promote 
their moral, social, and political well-being. The im- 
moral and degrading police-reports, advertisements, and 
other matter which have been allowed to disgrace the 
columns of our leading penny-papers, will be carefully 
excluded from tliis, and no exertion spared to render 
it worthy of the hearty approval of the virtuous and 
refined, and a welcome visitant at the family fireside. 

" Earnestly believing that the political revolution 
which has called William Henry Harrison to the 
chief magistracy of the nation was a triumph of 
right, reason, and public good, over error and sinis- 
ter ambition, ' The Tribune ' will give to the .new 
administration a frank and cordial, but manly and 
independent support, judging it always by its acts, 
and commending those only so far as they shall seem 
calculated to subserve the great end of all govern- 
ment, — the welfare of the people. 
11 



122 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

" ' The Tribune ' will be published every morning 
on a fair, royal sheet, — size of ' The Log-Cabin ' and 
'Evening Signal,' — and transmitted to its city sub- 
scribers at the low price of one cent per copy. Mail 
subscribers, four dollars per annum. It will contain 
the news by the morning's Southern mail, which is 
contained in no other penny-paper. Subscriptions 
are respectfully solicited by 

*' Horace Greeley, 30 Ann Street." 

*' The Tribune " from its commencement was a 
success, though several attempts were made to crush 
it. Many who had taken other papers stopped them, 
and took the new paper. One of our authoresses 
gives the following interesting account of her unsuc- 
cessful attempt to get one : — 

To the Editor of " TJie New -York Tribune^ 

Sir, — Not long since, I read in your paper an 
article headed " The Man who never took a News- 
paper." In contrast to this, I would relate to you a 
little incident which came under my own observation. 

Having been disappointed the other morning in 
receiving that part of my breakfast contained in " The 
New-York Tribune," I despatched a messenger to see 
what could be done in the way of satisfaction. After 
half an hour's diligent search, he returned, much to 



!MB. GREELEY AND " THE TEIBTJNE." 123 

my chagrin, empty-handed. Recollecting an old 
copy set me at school after this wise, " If you want 
a thing done, do it yourself," I seized my bonnet, 
and sallied forth. Not far from my domicile appears 
each morning with the rising sun an old huckster- 
man, whose stock in trade consists of two empty 
barrels, across which is thrown a pro tern counter in 
the shape of a plank, a pint of pea-nuts, six sticks 
of peppermint-candy, half a dozen cholera-looking 
pears and apples, copies of the daily papers, and an 
old stubby broom, with which the owner carefully 
brushes up the nut-shells dropped by graceless ur- 
chins to the endangerment of his sidewalk lease. 

" Have you this morning's ' Tribune ' ? " said I, 
looking as amiable as I knew how. 

" No, ma'am^^' was the decided reply. 

" Why, yes, you have,'' said I, laying my hand on 
the desired number. 

" Well, you can't have that, ma'am," said the dis- 
concerted peanut-merchant ; " for I haven't read it 
myself." 

" I'll give you three cents for it," said I. 

(A shake of the head.) 

" Four cents ? " 

(Another shake.) 

" Sixpence ? " (I was getting excited.) 

" It's no use, ma'am," said the persistent old fellow. 



124 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

" It's the only number I could get ; and I tell you 
that nobody shall have that ' Tribune ' till I have 
read it myself." 

You should have seen, Mr. Editor, the shapeless 
hat, the mosaic coat, the tattered vest, and the extraor- 
dinary pair of trousers, that were educated up to 
that " Tribune." It was a picture. Fanny Fern. 

Fight was the word with " The Tribune " when it 
was opposed ; and others outside took up the cudgel 
when the other papers attacked it. Its success was 
great. But one thing seemed necessary to its ultimate 
triumph. Mr. Greeley must have a partner ; and he 
found one; for on Saturday, July 31, he made the 
following announcement : " The undersigned has great 
pleasure in announcing to his friends and the public 
that he has formed a copartnership with Thomas 
McElrath ; and ' The Tribune ' will hereafter be pub- 
lished by himself and Mr. McElrath under the 
firm of Greeley and McElrath. The principal edi- 
torial charge of the paper will still rest with the 
subscriber ; while the entire business-management of 
the concern henceforth devolves upon his partner. 
This arrangement, while it relieves the undersigned 
from a large portion of the labors and cares which 
have pressed heavily upon him for the last four 
months, assures to the paper efificiency and strength 



125 



in a department where they have hitherto been 
needed ; and I cannot be mistaken in the trust that 
the accession to its conduct of a gentleman who has 
twice been honored with their suffrages for an impor- 
tant station will strengthen ' The Tribune ' in the 
confidence ajid affections of the Whigs of New York. 
" Respectfully, " Horace Greeley. 

"July 31." 

" The undersigned, in connecting himself with the 
conduct of a public journal, invokes a continuance of 
that courtesy and good feeling which have been ex- 
tended to him by his fellow-citizens. Having hereto- 
fore received evidence of kindness and regard from 
the conductors of the Whig press of this city, and re- 
joicing in the friendship of most of them, it will be 
his aim in his new vocation to justify that kindness, 
and strengthen and increase those friendships. His 
hearty concurrence in the principles, political and 
moral, on which ' The Tribune ' has thus far been 
conducted, has been a principal incitement to the con- 
nection here announced ; and the statement of this 
fact will preclude the necessity of any special declara- 
tion of opinions. With gratitude for past favors, and 
an anxious desire to merit a continuance of regard, 
he remains 

" The public's humble servant, 

"Thomas McElrath." 
11* 



126 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

" The Tribune " had now precisely what it needed 
to put it on a firm basis, — Horace Greeley for the 
editor, and Tliomas McElrath for managing the busi- 
ness-department. By this time, everybody knew what 
Mr. Greeley was as editor ; for he had abundantly 
shown what he could do in " The New-Yorker," " The 
Jeffersonian," "The Log-Cabin," &c. His friends 
knew his ability to defend them and the principles he 
espoused. His enemies of rival newspapers had felt 
his bite when they drove him to sliow his teeth, and 
his political opposers had learned to be shy of him. 

McElrath was a different kind of a man. He was 
the perfection of a disciplinarian ; a first-rate calcu- 
lator, who knew how to save the pennies : hence Mr. 
Parton, in his Life of Mr. Greeley, well said, " Roll 
Horace Greeley and Thomas McElrath into one, and 
the result would be a very respectable approximation 
to a perfect man." They were well matched in 
partnership. Damon and Pythias were not more 
firm friends, and they worked in perfect harmony. 

When " Tlie New-Yorker " had existed seven 
years, and " The Log-Cabin " one year and a half, 
they were both merged in " The Weekly Tribune." 
No hive of bees was ever more industrious than the 
editor and manager of " The Tribune " now were. 
The paper teemed with all the news of the day. It 
was freighted with every thing that made its appear- 



MR. GEEELEY AND "THE TRIBUISrE." 127 

ance in the literary world. Carlyle, Cousin, Thomas 
Moore, Millerism, and many celebrated legal trials, 
were on the docket in those days ; and they were all 
thoroughly handled in " The Tribune." The corrupt 
city government was attacked, and set in its true light, 
as it has been more recently; and the theatre came in 
under the following lashing : " The whole moral 
atmosphere of the theatre, as it actually exists among 
us, is, in our judgment, unwholesome ; and therefore, 
while we do not propose to war upon it, we seek no 
alliance with it, and cannot conscientiously urge our 
readers to visit it, as would be expected if we were to 
solicit and profit by its advertising patronage." 

This frank and open rebuke caused an outbreak and 
burst of abuse from the other papers, which the con- 
ductors of " The Tribune " bore with great calmness. 
Of course, all who advertised for what " The Tribune " 
called " contraband " united in an avalanche of abuse 
upon the paper which condemned them. 

Having been condemned for its course in justifying 
Daniel Webster for continuing in the cabinet of John 
Tyler after all his colleagues had resigned, " The Trib- 
une " justified its course upon the ground that Web- 
ster could best bring to a happy close the Ashburton 
Treaty, then pending. 

Again : Mr. Greeley was condemned for his course in 
the Tyler controversy; upon wliich, in 1845, he wrote 



128 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

as follows : " In December, 1841, I visited Washing- 
ton upon assurances that John Tyler and his advisers 
were disposed to return to the Whig party, and that I 
could be of service in bringing about a complete recon- 
ciliation between the administration and the Whigs in 
Congress and in the country. I never proposed to 
' connect myself with the cause of tlie administration ' 
but upon tlie understanding that it should be heartily 
and faithfully a Whig administration. Finally, I de- 
clined utterly and absolutely to ' connect myself with 
the cause of tlie administration ' the moment I became 
satisfied, as I did during that visit, that tlie chief of 
the government did not desire a reconciliation, upon 
the basis of sustaining Whig principles and Whig meas- 
ures, with the party he had so deeply wronged, but 
was treacherously coquetting with Locofocoism, and 
fooled with the idea of a re-election." 

Mr. Greeley's own account of what he from the first 
designed " The Tribune " should be is given in his 
" Recollections," as follows : " My leading idea was 
the establishment of a journal removed alike from ser- 
vile partisanship on the one hand, and from gagged, 
mincing neutrality on the other. 

" Party-spirit is so fierce and intolerant in this coun- 
try, that the editor of a non-partisan sheet is restrained 
from saying what he thinks and feels on the most vital, 
imminent topics ; while, on the other hand, a Demo- 



MR, GKEELEY AND " THE TBIBTJNE." 129 

cratic, Whig, or Republican journal is generally ex- 
pected to praise or blame, like or dislike, eulogize or 
condemn, in precise accordance with the views and 
interest of its party. I believed there was a happy 
medium between these extremes, — a position from 
which a journalist might openly and heartily advocate 
the principles and commend the measures of that party 
to which his convictions allied him, yet frankly dissent 
from its course on a particular question, and even de- 
nounce its candidates if they were shown to be deficient 
in capacity or (far worse) in integrity. I felt that a 
journal thus loyal to its guiding convictions, yet ready 
to expose and condemn unworthy conduct or inci- 
dental error on the part of men attached to its party, 
must be far more eiFective, even party-wise, than though 
it might always be counted on to applaud or repro- 
bate, bless or curse, as the party's prejudices or imme- 
diate interest might seem to prescribe. Especially by 
the Whigs — who were rather the loosely aggregated, 
mainly undisciplined opponents of a great party, than, 
in the stricter sense, a party themselves — did I feel 
that such a journal was consciously needed, and would 
be fairly sustained. I had been a pretty constant and 
copious contributor (generally unpaid) to nearly or 
quite every cheap Whig journal that had, from time to 
time, been started in our city, — most of them to fail 
after a very brief and not particularly bright career. 



130 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

But one, ' The New- York Whig,' which was, through- 
out most of its existence, under the dignified and con- 
scientious direction of Jacob B. Moore, formerly of 
' The New- Hampshire Journal,' had been continued 
through two or three years. My familiarity with its 
history and management gave me confidence that the 
right sort of a cheap Whig journal would be enabled to 
thrive. I had been ten years in New York ; was thirty 
years old ; in full health and vigor ; and worth, I pre- 
sume, about two thousand dollars, half of it in printing- 
materials. ' The Jeffersonian,' and, still more, ' The 
Log-Cabin,' had made me favorably known to many 
thousands of those who were most likely to take such 
a paper as I proposed to make ' The Tribune ; ' while 
' The New-Yorker' had given me some literary stand- 
ing, and the reputation of a useful and well-informed 
compiler of election-returns. In short, I was in a 
better position to undertake the establishment of a 
daily newspaper than the great mass of those who try 
it and fail, as most who make the venture do and must. 
I presume the new journals (in English) since started 
in this city number not less than a hundred, whereof 
barely two — ' The Times ' and ' The World ' — can 
be fairly said to be still living ; and ' The World ' is a 
mausoleum wherein the remains of ' The Evening 
Star,' ' The American,' and ' The Courier and En- 
quirer,' lie inurned, these having long ago swallowed 



ME. GREELEY AND "THE TllIBUNE." 131 

sundry of their predecessors. Yet several of those 
which have meantime lived their little hour and passed 
away were conducted by men of decided ability and 
ripe experience, and were backed by a pecuniary capi- 
tal at least twenty times greater than the fearfully 
inadequate sum whereon I started ' Tiie Tribune.' " 

Many of those wlio have been owners or were en- 
gaged upon " The Tribune " have passed away : 
nevertheless the paper still lives and prospers. Mr. 
Greeley says, " My current expenses for the first week 
were about five hundred and twenty-five dollars, my 
receipts ninety-two dollars; and, though the outgoes 
steadily increased, the income increased in a still 
larger ratio, till it nearly balanced the former." 

It required both faith and perseverance to go for- 
ward with such a work ; and Ilorace Greeley possessed 
both. The expenditure for carrying on this paper has 
been vast ; but the income has been enormous. It is 
no doubt destined to live and flourish for a long time 
to come. Mr. Greeley must look upon this work of 
his hands, and plan of his intellect, — this singular 
success, — with much complacency. He says in his 
" Recollections," " Fame is a vapor, popularity an 
accident ; riches take wings ; no man can see what a 
day may bring forth ; while those who cheer to-day 
will often curse to-morrow," — all of which he has a 
fair opportunity of knowing and feeling in his own per- 



132 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

son, now that he is a candidate for the presidency of 
the United States of America ; for, if he escapes cen- 
sure, he will be the first candidate for this high office 
who ever has. 



CHAPTER IX. 

"the tribune'* continued. 

" The Tribune " changed to a Two-Cent Paper. — A Mob in New York. — 
Mr. Greeley's First Visit to Washington. — His Letter from Mount Ver- 
non. — From Saratoga. — Margaret Fuller and Mr. Greeley. — Mr. Gree- 
ley's Opinion of John Tyler. — Burning of " The Tribune" Building. — 
Mr. Greeley's Description of it afterwards. 

THOUGH this paper was started as a penny paper, 
yet, when the second volume was commenced, 
the price was raised to two cents. New York, then 
(1842) as since, was of a riotous disposition ; and, on 
the day of the spring elections, certain fighting-men 
of the sixth ward indulged in their pugilistic game, 
and became rioters. " The Tribune " came out with 
the following rebuke among others : " It appears that 
some of the ' Spartan band,' headed by Michael Walsh, 
after a fight in the fourth district of the sixth ward, 
paraded up Centre Street, opposite the halls of jus- 
tice, to the neighborhood of the poll of the third dis- 
trict, where, after marching and counter-marching, the 
leader Walsh recommenced the work of violence by 

12 133 



134 LIFE OF HOE ACE GREELEY. 

knocking down an unoffending individual who was 
following near him. This was the signal for a general 
attack of this band upon the Irish population, who 
were knocked down in every direction until the street 
was literally strewed with their prostrate bodies. 
After this demonstration of Spartan valor the Irish 
fled, and the band moved on to another poll to re- 
enact their deeds of violence. In the interim the 
Irish proceeded to rally their forces, and, armed 
with sticks of cord-wood and clubs, paraded through 
Centre Street about three hundred strong, attackhig 
indiscriminately, and knocking down nearly all who 
came in their way ; some of their victims, bruised and 
bloody, having to be carried into the police-office and 
the prison to protect them from being murdered. A 
portion of the Irish then dispersed ; while another 
portion proceeded to a house in Orange Street, which 
they attacked, and riddled from top to bottom. Re- 
uniting their scattered forces, the Irish bands again, 
with increased numbers, marched up Centre Street, 
driving all before them : and, when near the halls of 
justice, the cry was raised, ' Americans, stand firm I ' 
when a body of nearly a thousand voters surrounded 
the Irish bands, knocked them down, and beat them 
without mercy ; while some of the fallen Irish were 
with difficulty rescued from the violence that would 
have destroyed them had they not been hurried into 



135 



the police-office and prison as a place of refuge. In 
this encounter, or the one that preceded it, a man 
named Ford, said to be one of the Spartans, was 
carried into the police-office beaten almost to death, 
and was subsequently transferred to the hospital." 

Immediately after this appeared, two stout men 
made their ingress into the office of '' The Tribune," 
and declared that this account of the riot was incor- 
rect and unjust, and they expected to see it corrected 
in the next issue of the paper ; but, as that was not 
done, a second visit was made to the office by the two 
fighting gentlemen. Bitter words were uttered, and 
sharp threats were made, that, unless a recantation 
were made in the next paper, they would " smash the 
office." The next paper gave a full history of the 
affiiir, and condemned the rioters in unmistakable 
terms. The " Bloody Sixth" were in a rage ; and the 
operators of " The Tribune " put themselves in an at- 
titude of defence. One of the conductors of the pa- 
per, being a member of the City Guard, obtained the 
muskets of that body, and had them conveyed to the 
" Tribune " building. One of them was placed near 
Mr. Greeley, who looked up, and said, " I guess they 
won't come down," and resumed his writing. Every 
preparation was made to give the rioters a warm re- 
ception should they appear to " smash the office." 
The steam-pipe was conveyed from the safety-valve of 



136 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

the boiler, and placed where it commanded the front 
stairs, by which the virtue of hot water was to be tried 
upon the invaders. The men from other offices, also, 
joined with the " Tribune " defenders, as they con- 
sidered it an attack on the freedom of the press; 
but the good story was spoiled by the non-appearance 
of the " Bloody Sixth." 

During the year of the second volume of "The 
Tribune," Mr. Greeley took a trip to Washington, 
Mount Vernon, Vermont, New Hampshire, and 
Niagara. During this tour he corresponded for 
" The Tribune," giving vivid descriptions of the sena- 
tors and representatives in Washington. 

He wrote as follows from Mount Vernon : " Slowly, 
pensively, we turned our faces from the rest of the 
mighty dead to the turmoil of the restless living ; from 
the solemn, sublime repose of Mount Vernon to the 
ceaseless intrigues, the petty strifes, the ant-hill bustle, 
of the Federal City. Each has its own atmosphere : 
London and Mecca are not so unlike as they. The 
silent, enshrouding woods, the gleaming, majestic 
river, the bright, benignant sky, — it is fitly here, 
amid the scenes he loved and hallowed, that the man 
whose life and character have redeemed patriotism 
and liberty from the reproach which centuries of 
designing knavery and hollow profession had cast 
upon them, now calmly awaits the trump of the 



"THE teibune" continued. 137 

archangel. Who does not rejoice that the original 
design of removing his ashes to the city has never 
been consummated ; that they lie where the pilgrim 
may reverently approach them, iinvexed by the light 
laugh of the time-killing worldling, unannoyed by 
the vain or vile scribblings of the thoughtless or the 
base ? Thus may they repose forever, that the heart 
of the patriot may be invigorated, the hopes of the 
philanthropist strengthened and his aims exalted, 
the pulse of the American quickened and his aspira- 
tions purified, by a visit to Mount Yernon ! " 
While at Niagara he wrote the following : — 
" Years, though not many, have weighed upon me 
since first in boyhood I gazed from the deck of a 
canal-boat upon the distant cioud of white vapor 
which marked the position of the world's great cata- 
ract, and listened to catch the rumbling of its deep 
thunders. Circumstances did not then permit me to 
gratify my strong desire of visiting it ; and now, when 
I am tempted to wonder at the stolidity of those who 
live within a day's journey, yet live on through half 
a century without one glance at the mighty torrent, I 
am checked by the reflection that I myself passed 
within a dozen miles of it no less tlian fiv.e times 
before I was able to enjoy its magnificence. The 
propitious hour came at last, however ; and after a 
disappointed gaze from the upper terrace on the Brit- 

12* 



138 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

isli side (in which I half feared that the sheet of 
broken and boiling water above was all the cataract 
that existed), and rapid, tortuous descent by the 
woody declivity, I stood at length on Table Rock, 
and the whole immensity of the tremendous ava- 
lanche of waters burst at once on my arrested vision, 
while awe struggled with amazement for the mastery 
of my soul. 

" This was late in October. I have twice visited the 
scene amid the freshness and beauty of June ; but 
I think the late autumn is by far the better season. 
There is then a sternness in the sky, a plaintive 
melancholy in the sighing of the wind through the 
mottled forest-foliage, which harmonize better with 
the spirit of the scene. For the Genius of Niagara, 
friend ! is never a laughter-loving spirit. For the 
gaudy vanities, the petty pomps, the light follies, of 
the hour, he has small sympathy. Let not the giddy 
heir bring here his ingots, the selfish aspirant his 
ambition, the libertine his victim, and hope to find 
enjoyment and gayety in the presence. Let none 
come here to nurse his pride or avarice, or any 
other low desire. God and his handiwork here stand 
forth in lone sublimity; and all petty doings and dar- 
ings of the ants at the base of the pyramid appear in 
their proper significance. Few can have visited Niag- 
ara, and left it no humbler, no graver, than they 



139 



When he returned to New York, and recom- 
menced his editorial labors, he wrote, " The senior 
editor of this paper has returned to his post after an 
absence of four weeks, during which he has visited 
nearly one-half of the counties of this State, and 
passed through portions of Pennsylvania, Vermont, 
Massachusetts, &c. During this time he has written 
I little for * The Tribune ' save the casual and hasty 
letter to which his initials were subscribed ; but it 
need hardly be said that the general course and con- 
i duct of the paper have been the same as if he had 
, been at his post. 

I " Two deductions only from the observations he has 
1 made and the information he has gathered in his 
\ tour will here be given. They are these : — 

" 1. The cause of protection to home-industry is 

I much stronger throughout this and the adjoining 

I States than even the great party which mainly up- 

I holds it ; and nothing will so much tend to insure the 

I election of Henry Clay for our next president as the 

I veto of an efficient tariff-bill by John Tyler. 

I " 2. The sti-ength of the Whig party is unbroken 

I by recent disasters and treachery, and only needs the 

; proper opportunity to manifest itself in all the energy 

and power of 1840. If a distinct and unequivocal 

issue can be made upon the great leading questions 

at issue between the rival parties, — on protection to 



140 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

liome-industrj and internal improvement, — the Whig 
ascendency will be triumphantly vindicated in the 
coming election." 

Mr. Parton, in his excellent " Life of Horace Gree- 
ley," speaking of this period, says, " The year 1844 
was the year of Clay and Frelinghuysen, Polk and 
Dallas ; the year of nativism, and the year of deliri- 
ous hope and deep despair ; the year that finished 
one era of politics, and began another ; the year of 
Margaret Fuller, and the burning of ' The Tribune ' 
office ; the year when Horace Greeley showed his 
friends how hard a man can work, how little he can 
sleep, and yet live. ' The Tribune ' began its fourth 
volume on the 10th of April, enlarged one-third in 
size, with new type, and a modest flourish of trum- 
pets. It returned thanks to the public for the liberal 
support which had been extended to it from the 
beginning of its career. ' Our gratitude,' said the 
editor, ' is the deeper from our knowledge that many 
of the views expressed through our columns are 
unacceptable to a large proportion of our readers. 
We know especially that our advocacy of measures 
intended to meliorate the social condition of the toil- 
ing millions (not the purpose, but the means) ; our 
ardent sympathy with the people of Ireland in their 
protracted, arduous, peaceful struggle to recover 
some portion of the common rights of man ; and onr 



"THE TRIBUKE" continued. 141 

opposition to tlie legal extinction of human life, — 
are, severally or collectively, regarded with extreme 
aversion by many of our steadfast patrons, whose 
liberality and confidence are gratefully appreciated.' 
To the Whig party, of which it was ' not an organ, 
but a humble advocate,' its obligations were many 
and profound. ' The Tribune,' in fact, had become 
the leading Whig paper of the country. 

"Horace Greeley had long set his heart upon 

the election of Henry Clay to the presidency, for 

some special reasons besides the general one of his 

belief that the policy identified with the name of 

Henry Clay was the true policy of the government. 

Henry Clay was one of the heroes of his boyhood's 

admiration. Yet in 1840, believing that Clay could 

not be elected, he had used his influence to promote 

I the nomination of Gen. Harrison. Then came the 

I death of the president, the ' apostasy ' of Tyler, and 

'his pitiful attempts to secure a re-election. The 

I annexation of Texas loomed up in the distance, and 

I the repeal of the tariff of 1842. For these and other 

I reasons, Horace Greeley was inflamed with a desire to 

I behold once more the triumph of his party, and to 

! see the long career of the eminent Kentuckian 

crowned with its suitable, its coveted reward. For 

this he labored as few men have ever labored for any 

but personal objects. He attended the convention at 



142 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 

Baltimore that nominated the Whig candidates, — one 
of the largest (and quite the most excited) political 
assemblages that ever were gathered in this country. 
During the summer he addressed political meetings 
three, four, five, six times a week. He travelled far 
and wide, advising, speaking, and in every way urging 
on the cause. He wrote, on an average, four columns 
a day for ' The Tribune.' He answered, on an 
average, twenty letters a day. He wrote to such an 
extent, that his right arm broke out in boils ; and at 
one time there were twenty between the wrist and the 
elbow. He lived, at that time, a long distance from 
the office ; and many a hot night he protracted his 
labors till the last omnibus had gone, and he was 
obliged to trudge wearily home after sixteen hours 
of incessant and intense exertion. The Whigs were 
very confident. They were sure of victory. But 
Horace Greeley knew the country better. If every 
Whig had worked as he worked, how different had 
been the result ! how different the subsequent history 
of the country ! how different its future ! — we had 
had no annexation of Texas, no Mexican war, no 
tinkering of the tariff to keep the nation provincially 
dependent on Europe, no fugitive-slave law, no Pierce, 
no Douglas, no Nebraska." 

Notwithstanding all the efforts of " The Tribune " 
to the contrary, Polk and Dallas were elected Presi- 
dent and Vice-President of the United States. 



" THE TRIBUNE " CONTINUED. 143 

In February, 1845, " The Tribune '' building was 
burned. Almost every paper in New York has been 
burned out some time, and some of them more than 
once. The following is Mr. Greeley's account of it : — 

" At four o'clock yesterday morning, a boy in our 
employment entered our publication-office as usual, 
and kindled a fire in the stove for the day ; after which 
he returned to the mailing-room below, and resumed 
folding newspapers. Half an hour afterward, a clerk, 
who slept on the counter of the publication-office, was 
awoke by a sensation of heat, and found the room in 
flames. He escaped with a slight scorching. A 
hasty effort was made by two or three persons to 
extinguish the fire by casting water upon it ; but the 
fierce wind then blowing rushed in as the doors were 
opened, and drove the flames through the building 
with inconceivable rapidity. Mr. Graham, and our 
clerk Robert M. Strebeigh, were sleeping in the 
second story until awakened by the roar of the flames, 
their room being full of smoke and fire. The door 
and stairway being on fire, they escaped with only 
their night-clothes by jumping from a rear window, 
each losing a gold watch, and Mr. Graham nearly 
five hundred dollars in cash, which was in his pocket- 
book under his pillow. Robert was somewhat cut in 
the face on striking the ground, but not seriously. 
In our printing-office, fifth story, two compositors 



144 LITE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

were at work making up * The Weekly Tribune ' for 
the press, and had barely time to escape before the 
stairway was in flames. In the basement our press- 
men were at work on ' The Daily Tribune ' of the 
morning, and had printed about three-fourths of the 
edition : the balance, of course, went with every thing 
else, including a supply of paper and ' The Weekly 
Tribune ' printed on one side. A few books were 
hastily caught up and saved, but nothing else, — not 
even the daily form on which the pressmen were 
working. So complete a destruction of a daily news- 
paper-office was never known. From the editorial 
rooms not a paper was saved ; and besides all the 
editor's own manuscripts, correspondence, and collec- 
tion of valuable books, some manuscripts belonging to 
friends, of great value to them, are gone. 

" Our loss, so far as money can replace it, is about 
eighteen thousand dollars, of which ten thousand dol- 
lars was covered by insurance. The loss of property 
which insurance would not cover we feel more 
keenly. 

"If our mail-books come out whole from our 
salamander safe, now buried among the burning 
ruins, we shall be gratefully content. 

" It is usual on such occasions to ask, * Why were 
you not fully insured ? ' It is impossible, from the 
nature of our business, that we should be so ; and no 



"THE TRIBUNIS" CONTZNTJED. 145 

man could have imagined that such an establishment, 
ill which men were constantly at work night and day, 
could be wholly consumed by fire. Tiiere has not 
been another night since the building was put up 
when it could have been burned down, even if delib- 
erately fired for that purpose. But when this fire 
broke out, under a strong gale and snow-storm of 
twenty-four hours' continuance, which had rendered 
the streets impassable, it was well-nigh impossible to 
drag an engine at all. Some of them could not be 
got out t)f their houses ; others were dragged a few 
rods, and then given up of necessity ; and those which 
reached the fire found the nearest hydrant frozen up, 
and only to be opened with an axe. Meantime the 
whole building was in a blaze. 

" We have been called, editorially, to scissor out a 
great many fires, both small and great, and have done 
so with cool philosophy, not reflecting how much, to 
some one man, the little paragraph would most 
assuredly mean. The late complete and summary 
burning-up of our office, licked up clean as it was by 
the red flames in a few hours, has taught us a lesson 
on this head. Aside from all pecuniary loss, how 
great is the suffering produced by a fire ! A hundred 
little articles (5f no use to any one save the owner ; 
things that people would look at day after day, and 
see nothing in ; that we ourselves have contemplated 

13 



146 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

with cool indifference, — now that they are irrevocably 
destroyed, come up in the shape of reminiscences, and 
seem as if they had been worth their weight in 
gold. 

" We would not indulge in unnecessary sentiment ; 
but even the old desk at which we sat, the ponderous 
inkstand, the familiar faces of files of correspondence, 
the choice collection of pamphlets, the unfinished 
essay, the charts by which we steered, — can they all 
have vanished, nevermore to be seen ? Truly your 
fire makes clean work, and is, of all executive officers, 
supereminent. Perhaps that last choice batch of 
letters may be somewhere on file : we are almost 
tempted to cry, ' Devil ! find it up ! ' Poh ! it is a 
mere cinder now : some 

' Fathoms deep my letter lies ; 
Of its lines is tinder made.* 

" No Arabian tale can cradle a wilder fiction, or show 
how altogether illusory life is. Those solid walls of 
brick, those five decent stories, those steep and diffi- 
cult stairs, the swinging doors, the sanctum, — scene of 
many a deep political drama, of many a pathetic tale, 
— utterly whiffed oat as one summarily snuffs out a 
spermaceti on retiring for the night; and all per- 
fectly true. 

" One always has some private satisfaction in his 



"THE tribune" continued. 147 

own particular misery. Consider what a night it was 
that burnt us out; that we were conquered by the 
elements ; went up in flames heroically on the wildest, 
windiest, stormiest night these dozen years, not by 
any fault of human enterprise, but fairly conquered 
by stress of weather : there was a great flourish of 
trumpets, at all events. 

" And consider, above all, that salamander safe ; 
how, after all, the fire, assisted by the elements, only 
came off second-best, not being able to reduce that 
safe into ashes. That is the streak of sunshine 
through the dun wreaths of smoke, the combat of 
human ingenuity against the desperate encounter of 
the seething Iieat. But those boots, and Webster's 
Dictionary : well, we were handsomely whipped there, 
we acknowledge." 



CHAPTER X. 

MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 

Mr. Greeley a Politician from his Youth. — A Great Friend of the United- 
States Bank. — A Friend of William H. Seward. — Opposed to Gen. 
Jackson. — Greeley in the Harrison Campaign. — Deep in Politics. 

FROM a child, Horace Greeley was a politician. 
He says, " I was an ardent politician when not 
yet half old enough to vote." 

Though young, he fought with the North against 
the admission of Missouri as a slave State. He was 
opposed to the compromise by which Missouri came 
into the Union. 

The nation now had a calm for several years. But, 
in 1824, William H. Crawford of Georgia was nomi- 
nated in a congress attended by less than one-third 
of the members of Congress. New England opposed 
such a caucus, and voted in solid phalanx for John 
Quincy Adams. No choice of president was made by 
the people, — or rather by the electors, who have ever 
been the automatons of the people, — and Mr. Adams 
was chosen by the House. Mr. Greeley, — always a 

148 



MR. GEEELEY IN POLITICS. 149 

tariff-man, — with the rest of the Northern Whigs, 
now went against Mr. Calhoun, who had formerly been 
a protectionist, but who had now joined the Jackson 
party ; and at this time, Mr. Greeley says, " Every 
thing went wrong with us [meaning the Whigs] at 
this time. Out-manoeuvred on every side, we were 
clearly doomed to defeat ; " and in 1828 Jackson was 
elected. 

Mr. Greeley says, " In the succeeding presidential 
contest, in 1832, we had scarcely a chance. Anti- 
Masonry had divided us, and driven thousands of 
Adams men over to Jackson, whose personal popu- 
larity was very great, especially with the non-reading 
class, and who had strengthened himself at the North 
by his tariff-messages and his open rupture with Cal- 
houn." 

Mr. Greeley shows his thorough acquaintance with 
every rope in the politics of the ship of state, from 
those times down to the present. He says again, " I 
have always — at least, since I read Dr. Franklin's 
Autobiography, more than forty years ago — been an 
advocate of paper-money ; but I want it to be money, 
convertible at pleasure into coin, — not printed lies, 
even though they fail to deceive." 

Mr. Greeley was a great friend of the United-States 
Bank, as were his Whig brethren of that day : hence he 
was a stanch opponent of Gen. Jackson's policy. Of 

13* 



150 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 

those stormy times Mr. Greeley wrote in his " Recollec- 
tions," " The United-States Bank, being required to pay 
over the millions it held on deposit for the government, 
receiving no more, began, of course, to contract its loans. 
It could do no otherwise ; especially as an attempt, 
evidently inspired, had been made by Jackson brokers 
to break its branch at Savannah by quietly collecting 
a large quantity of its notes, and presenting them at 
once for payment, hoping that they could not all be 
met, and that it might thereupon be claimed that the 
bank had failed. It was charged by its adversaries 
that the contraction consequent upon the removal of 
the deposits was too rapid and too great ; in fact, that 
its purpose was the creation of commercial distress 
and panic. This may have been : but a very decided 
contraction by that bank was inevitable ; and it could 
have pursued no course that did not expose it to accu- 
sation and reproach. I presume it struggled for its 
life, as most of us would do if assailed with deadly 
intent. With the removal of the deposits its power to 
regulate the currency lapsed, and its duty as well. 
Those banks to which the government had transferred 
its funds and its favors shoijld unitedly have assumed 
and exercised the functions of a regulator, or confessed 
their inability. As the pressure for money increased, 
the political elements were lashed to fury, and our 
city — the focus of American commerce — became the 



MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 151 

arena of a fierce electioneering struggle. Hitherto the 
Jackson ascendency had, since the death of De Witt 
Clinton, been so decided, that our charter elections 
had usually been scarcely contested; but tlie*stirring 
debates daily received from Washington, the strivings 
of merchants and banks to avert bankruptcy, the daily 
tightening of the money-market, and the novel hopes 
of success inspired in the breasts of those who now 
took the name of ' Whigs ' to indicate their repug- 
nance to unauthorized assumptions of executive power, 
rendered New York for some weeks a boiling caldron 
of political passions. Our three-days' election (April, 
1834) was the most vehement and keenly-contested 
struggle which I ever witnessed. Our city was then 
divided into fifteen wards, with but one poll to each 
ward ; and I should estimate the average attendance 
on each at little less than a thousand. I am certain 
that I saw the masses surroundhig the fourth and sixth 
ward polls respectively (then but two or three blocks 
apart) so mingled, that you could not say where the 
one ended and the other began. There were some 
fights, of course, and one general collision iu the sixth 
ward that might have resulted in deplorable blood- 
shed ; but peace was soon restored. In the event, the 
Jacksonites elected their mayor (Cornelius W. Law- 
rence) over the Wliig candidate (Gulian C. Yer- 
planck) by three hundred and eighty-four majority ; 



152 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELE^. 

which was less than their overplus of voters natural- 
ized on the last day of the poll. The total vote was 
nearly thirty-five thousand ;- which was probably a 
closer approach to the whole number of legal voters 
than was ever drawn out before or since. The Whigs 
carried both branches of the common council, giving 
them the control of most of the city patronage ; so that 
the result was generally and justly regarded as a 
drawn battle. 

" My concern printed a daily campaign penny-paper, 
entitled 'The Constitution,' through most of that 
year, and I was a free contributor to its columns ; 
though its editor and publisher was Mr. Achilles R. 
Grain, who died some thirty years ago. It did not 
pay ; and the firm of Greeley and Winchester were 
losers by it, counting my editorial assistance worth 
nothing. William H. Seward, then thirty-four years 
old, and just closing with distinction a four-years* 
term in the State Senate, was our candidate for gov- 
ernor, with Silas M. Stillwell for lieutenant ; and we 
fondly hoped to carry the State in the November 
election. But meantime the State banks, wherein the 
federal revenue was deposited (' pet banks ' we Whigs 
termed them), had been enabled to effect an enor- 
mous expansion of their loans and issues ; and the 
country, not yet feeling the tariff reductions which 
the compromise of 1833 had barely inaugurated, was 



MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 153 

launched on the flood of a factitious but seductive 
semblance of prosperity. Money was abundant. 
Every one had employment who wanted, and pay if 
he earned it ; property was rapidly increasing in 
value ; factories and furnaces had full work, and were 
doing well : so, when the fall election came, we made 
a gallant fight, but were badly defeated ; Marcy being 
re-elected governor over Seward by some thirteen 
thousand majority, — more than he had over Granger 
in 1832 ; and the Whigs, beaten pretty generally and 
decisively, relapsed into a torpor, whence they were 
scarcely aroused by the ensuing presidential election, 
wherein Gen. Harrison was made their candidate for 
president, with Francis Granger for vice-president ; 
while Hugh L. White of Tennessee ran for president, 
with John Tyler of Virginia for vice-president, on 
an independent ticket, which contested the South 
with the Jackson Regulars, who alone held a national 
convention, in which they nominated Martin Yan 
Buren for president, with Col. Richard M. Johnson 
of Kentucky for vice. I was among the very few in 
the Eastern States who had taken any interest in 
bringing forward Gen. Harrison as a candidate, 
believing that there was the raw material for a good 
run in his history and character ; but this was not 
generally credited, at least in our State, which, in a 
languid contest on a light vote, went for Van Buren, 



154 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

Johnson, and Marcy, by some twenty-eight thousand 
majority. When, however, the returns from other 
States came pouring in, and it was found that Gen. 
Harrison had carried, with Vermont only of the New- 
England States, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, 
Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, and had barely failed 
to carry Pennsylvania, while White had carried 
Tennessee and Georgia, barely failing in North 
Carolina and in two or three South-western States, 
and that Virginia had refused her vote to Johnson, so 
that he had failed of an election by the people, and 
had to be chosen over Granger by the Senate, there 
was a general waking-up to the conviction, that either 
Harrison was more popular, or Van Buren more 
obnoxious, than had been supposed in our State, and 
that the latter might have been beaten by seasonable 
concert and effort. In that slouching Whig defeat of 
1836 lay the germ of the overwhelming Whig tri- 
umph of 1840." 

Mr. Greeley could never account for Mr. Van 
Buren's election, except upon the principle of " love 
me, love my dog; " and always insisted that love for 
Andrew Jackson attained the presidency for Van 
Buren. Soon the trouble from removing the deposits 
by Jackson ripened to real distress under Van 
Buren's administration ; and Mr. Greeley wrote in his 
" Recollections " as follows; " The commercial revul- 



MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. J.55 

sion, which was rather apprehended than fully experi- 
enced in 1834, was abundantly realized in 1837. 
Manufactories were stopped, and their hands thrown 
out of work. Trade was almost stagnant. Bank- 
ruptcies among men of business were rather the rule 
than the exception. Property was sacrificed at auc- 
tion, often at sheriff's or assignee's sale, for a fraction 
of its value ; and thousands who had fondly dreamed 
themselves millionnaires, or on the point of becoming 
such, awoke to the fact that they were bankrupt. 
The banks were, of course, in trouble ; those which 
had been government depositories, or pets, rather 
deeper than the rest. Looking at the matter from 
their point of view, they had been first seduced into a 
questionable path, and were now reviled and assailed 
for yielding to their seducers. Soon were heard the 
rumblings of a political earthquake. Scarcely a State 
elected members of Congress or a governor in 1837, 
after the suspension of specie payment ; but the legis- 
lative and local elections of autumn sufficiently 
indicated the popular revulsion. When New York 
came to vote in November, the gale had stiffened into 
a tornado. The Whigs carried New- York City, which 
they had never done before, with Westchester, 
Orange, Duchess, Greene, Oneida, Onondaga, and 
other counties hitherto overwhelmingly Democratic, 
giving them six of the eight Senate districts, includ- 



156 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

ing the first and second. Herkimer, Jefferson, St 
Lawrence, Suffolk, and a few smaller counties, were 
all that clung to the waning fortunes of Van Buren, 
the Whigs choosing a hundred out of the hundred 
and twenty-eight members of Assembly. Tlie Senate 
being chosen, but one-fourth annually remained 
strongly Democratic." 

Mr. Greeley kept posted with the views of every 
president, whether Democratic or Whig. Of Mr. 
Polk he said, — 

" He was a man of moderate abilities, faultless 
private character, and undeviating Jacksonism. He 
had briefly but positively avowed himself an advo- 
cate of the immediate annexation of Texas. Mr. 
Polk had been for years in Congress, and had always 
voted there against protection, as all Southern Demo- 
crats had voted since 1828. He was as much a free- 
trader as Mr. Calhoun had been ever since 1824 ; and 
yet he was induced by the exigencies of the canvass 
in Pennsylvania to write or sign the following 

letter : — 

Columbia, Tenn., June 19, 1844. 

Dear Sir, — I have received recently several let- 
ters in reference to my opinions on the subject of the 
tariff, and, among others, yours, of the 10th ult. 
My opinions on this subject have been often given to 
the public. They are to be found in my public acts, 



MR. GEEELEY IN POLITICS. 157 

and in the public discussions in which I have partici- 
pated. I am in favor of a tariff for revenue, — such 
a one as will yield a sufficient amount to the treasury 
to defray the expenses of government economically 
administered. In adjusting the details of a revenue 
tariff, I have heretofore sanctioned such moderate 
discriminating duties as would produce the amount 
of revenue needed, and at the same time afford inci- 
dental protection to our home-industry. I am op- 
posed to a tariff for protection merely, and not for 
revenue. Acting upon these general principles, it is 
well known that I gave my support to the policy of 
Gen. Jackson's administration on this subject. I 
voted against the tariff act of 1828. I voted for the 
act of 1832, which contained modifications of some of 
the objectionable provisions of the act of 1828. As a 
member of the committee of ways and means of the 
Representatives, I gave my assent to the bill reported 
by that committee in December, 1832, making further 
modifications of the act of 1828, and making also 
discriminations in the imposition of the duties which 
it proposed. That bill did not pass, but was super- 
seded by the bill commonly called " The Compromise 
Bill," for which I voted. In my judgment, it is the 
duty of the government to extend, as far as it may 
be practicable to do so, by its revenue-laws and all 
other means within its power, fair and just protection 

14 



158 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 

to all the great interests of the whole Union, em- 
bracing agriculture, manufactures, and the mechanic 
arts, commerce, and navigation. I heartily approve 
the resolutions upon this subject passed by the Demo- 
cratic national convention lately assembled at Balti- 
more. 

I am with great respect, dear sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

James K. Polk. 

John K. Kane, Esq., Philadelphia." 

Mr. Greeley adds, " It was impossible not to see 
that this was an elaborate attempt to darken counsel 
so as to break the force of the tariff issue, which was 
telling strongly against him wherever protection was 
the favorite policy." 

Mr. Greeley says, " I have admired and trusted 
many statesmen ; I profoundly loved Henry Clay : 
hence, from the hour of his nomination (in May, 1844) 
to his defeat in November, I gave every hour, every 
effort, every thought, to his election. 

" Mr. Clay, born in poverty and obscurity, had not 
even a common-school education, and had only a few 
months' clerkship in a store, with a somewhat longer 
training in a lawyer's office, as preparation for his 
great career. Tall in person, though plain in fea- 
tures, graceful in manner, and at once dignified and 



MK. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 159 

affable in bearing, I think his fervid patriotism and 
thrilling eloquence combined with decided natural 
abilities and a wide and varied experience to render 
him the American more fitted to win and enjoy popu- 
larity than any other who has lived. That popularity 
he steadily achieved and extended through the earlier 
half of his long public life : but he was confronted 
by a political combination well-nigh invincible, based 
on the potent personal strength of Gen. Jackson; and 
this overcame him. Five times presented as a candi- 
date for president, he was always beaten, — twice in 
conventions of his political associates, thrice in the 
I choice of electors by the people. The careless reader 
( of our history in future centuries will scarcely real- 
I ize the force of his personal magnetism, nor conceive 
! how millions of hearts glowed with sanguine hopes 
I of his election to tlie presidency, and bitterly lamented 
j his and their discomfiture.'* 

In 1848 we find Mr. Greeley still in politics. Polk 
and Dallas had served their period ; the Mexican war 
was over; and Zachary Taylor, technically called 
*' Old Zach," was nominated for president. Of this 
nomination Daniel Webster said, " It was not fit to be 
made; "and Horace Greeley said or acted out this 
same idea. He says in his " Recollections," " The 
presidential canvass of 1848 opened directly after it 
(the Mexican war). 



160 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

" Gen. Zachary Taylor — a native of Virginia, 
but long resident in Louisiana — bad evinced quali- 
ties in tbe war wbich strongly commended bim to 
many as a candidate for our bigbest civil office. 
Tbougb bis part in it was less^brilliant, less important,* 
tbaii tbat of Gen. Scott, be bad commended himself 
far more widely to popular favor. Quiet, resolute, 
sententious, unostentatious, be was admired by multi- 
tudes wbo profoundly detested tbe war wberein be 
bad so suddenly acbieved renown ; and many of tbem 
gloated over tbe prospect of burling from power tbe 
politicians wbo bad so wantonly plunged us into a 
contest of aggression and invasion by means of tbe very 
instrument wbicb tbey bad employed to consummate 
tbeir purposes. I non-concurred in tins view most 
decidedly. Gen. Taylor, tbougb an excellent soldier, 
bad no experience as a statesman ; and bis capacity for 
civil administration was wboUy undemonstrated. He 
bad never voted ; bad, apparently, paid little attention 
to and taken little interest in politics ; and, tbougb ' 
inclined toward tbe Wbig party, was but sligbtly iden- 
tified witb its ideas and its efforts. Nobody could say 
wbat were bis views regarding protection, internal im- 
provement, or tbe currency. On tbe great question — 
wbicb our vast acquisitions from Mexico bad suddenly 
invested witb tbe gravest importance — of excluding 
slavery from tbe yet untainted federal Territories, be 



MR. GREELEY IN POLITICS. 161 

had nowise declared himself ; and the fact that he was 
an extensive slaveholder justified a presumption that 
he, like most slaveholders, deemed it right that any 
settler in the Territories should be at liberty to take 
thither, and hold there as property, whatever the laws 
of his own State recognized as property. We desired 
to * take a bond" of fate ' that this view should not be 
held by a Whig president, at all events. 

" And then I (with many otliers) wanted to try over 
again the issue on which I thought we had been de- 
frauded in 1844. It seemed impossible that Pennsyl- 
vania (in view of her recent experience) should again 
be persuaded that any Democrat was as good a protec- 
tionist as Henry Clay. True, we had not defeated 
Gov. Shunk's re-election in 1847 ; but the running 
of distinct Whig and Native candidates for governor 
rendered our defeat inevitable. 

" New York we had carried in 1847 by a very large 
majority ; the Free-soil section of the Democratic 
party withholding its votes from the proslavery or 
' hunker ' State ticket. The Whigs of our State were 
mainly for Clay. We could give him her electoral 
vote ; and this, with Pennsylvania, made his election 
morally certain. Hence I worked hard to secure his 
nomination. 

" The attempt to run a parallel between this case 
and that of 1840 failed hi the most material point. 

14* 



162 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

Gen. Harrison may not have been so able as Mr. Clay; 
but he was not less earnestly and unequivocally a 
Whig. No one could indicate a shade of difference in 
their political views. Gen. Harrison's military career 
was brief and casual: his life had been that of a 
civilian, honored and trusted by all administrations 
between 1800 and 1828, — a Territorial governor, 
United-States senator, and ambassador to Colombia. 
Gen. Taylor, now an old man, had been in the regular 
army from boyhood, and was in all things a veteran 
soldier. His slender acquaintance with and interest 
in politics was nowise feigned, but was usual and 
natural with men of his class and position. 

" The Whig national convention met at Philadel- 
phia on the 1st of June. There was a pretty full, 
but not extraordinary attendance. I believe Ex-Gov- 
ernor Morehead of North Carolina presided. It was 
very soon apparent that the shrewd, influential, man- 
aging politicians were generally for Taylor, who had a 
plurality, but not a majority, on the first ballot, and 
gained steadily on the two following ; viz. : — 





1st. 


2d. 


3d. 


Taylor 


Ill 


118 


133 


Clay . . . 


97 


86 


74 


Scott . 


43 


49 


54 


Webster 


22 


22 


17 


Scattering . 


6 


— 


— 



MR. GBEELEY IN POLITICS. 163 

" An adjournment was now had till next morning : 
but the issue was already decided, and Gen. Taylor 
was nominated on the next ballot ; when the vote 
stood, — Taylor, 171; Clay, 35; Scott, 60 ; Webster, 
14. All that we Clayites achieved was the substitu- 
tion of Millard Fillmore as vice-president for Abbott 
Lawrence of Boston, who was on the Taylor slate ; 
but evidences of dissatisfaction induced the managers 
to take him off, and let Mr. Fillmore be nominated." 



CHAPTER XI. 

« 

MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 

Elected to Congress. — Attacks the Mileage Fraud. — Mr. Greeley accused 
of Inconsistency. — His Explanation. — His Reports to " The Tribune " 
attacked. — He introduces the Mileage Bill. — Sticks to his Opinion of 
Gen. Taylor's Nomination. — Address to his Constituents. — Our Object 
not to extol him, but to tell what he has done. — Quotation from Mr. 
Greeley's Whig Almanac. — His Effort to save Money. — Mr. Turner's 
Resolutions. — Mr. Greeley's Reply. — Mr. Greeley not a, Dead- Head. — 
Facetious Discussion on the Mileage Question. — Second Address to his 
Constituents. 

MR. GREELEY was elected to fill out the term 
of three months of a deceased member. He 
did not seek the office, and spoke of his nomination 
and election as follows, some years after : " In our 
State election for 1846, David S. Jackson (Democrat) 
had been chosen to represent the upper district of 
our city in the thirtieth Congress by a small majority 
over Col. James Monroe (Whig). Tliat majority was 
obtained by bringing over from Blackwell's Island, 
and polling in the nineteenth ward, the adult male 
paupers domiciled in the almshouse, — not merelv 

164 



MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 165 

those who had resided in our district before they 
honored our city by condescending to live at her 
expense, but those who had been gathered in from 
other districts. Col. Monroe objected to this as car- 
rying a joke too far ; and, on his contesting the return 
of Mr. Jackson, the House sustained the objection, 
and unseated Jackson without replacing him by 
Monroe. The people were required to vote again. 

" By this time it was 1848, — the year of Gen. Tay- 
lor's election. Col. -Monroe confidently expected to be 
the Whig candidate, not merely for the vacancy, but 
for the ensuing thirty-first Congress. The delegates, 
however, were fixed for Mr. James Brooks, editor of 
' The Express,' who was duly nominated for the 
thirty-first ; while Col. Monroe was tendered the 
nomination for the remaining ninety days (at eight 
dollars per day) of the thirtieth Congress. He de- 
clined indignantly : whereupon that fag-end of a 
term was tendered to me. I at first resolved to 
decline also, not seeing how to leave my business 
so abruptly for a three-months' sojourn at Washing- 
ton ; but the nomination was so kindly pressed upon 
me, with such apparently cogent reasons therefor, 
that I accepted it. There was never any doubt of the 
result. A politician soon called on me, professing to 
be from Mr. Brooks, to inquire as to what should be 
done to secure our election. ' Tell Mr. Brooks,' I 



166 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

responded, * that we have only to keep so still that no 
particular attention will be called to us, and Gen. 
Taylor will carry us both in. There are not voters 
enough in the district who care about either of us, 
one way or the other, to swamp the majority that the 
Taylor electors cannot fail to receive.' 

" The district from which I was chosen included all 
our city above Fourteenth Street, with the eleventh, 
fifteenth, and seventeenth wards lying below that 
street. It then contained about one-third of the city's 
entire population : it now contains at least two-thirds. 
When, soon after taking my seat, I introduced a 
bill authorizing each landless citizen of the United 
States to occupy and appropriate a small allotment 
of the national domain, free of charge, a Western 
member wanted to know why New York should busy 
herself as to the disposal of the public lands. I re- 
sponded, that my interest in the matter was stimulated 
by the fact that I represented more landless men than 
any other member on that floor. 

'* The pay of members of Congress for services 
was, then as now, all the same for each member ; but 
the mileage was different, as some came five, and some 
a thousand miles." The first thing Mr. Greeley did 
when he entered Congress was to attack the mileage 
question. He gives his own account of this matter in 
his " Recollections " thus ; — 



MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 167 

" The introduction and rapid multiplication of 
steamboats, especially on our great trans-AUeghany 
network of rivers and lakes, rendered this mileage 
absurdly too high. A member now traversed a dis- 
tance of two thousand miles about as quickly as, and 
at hardly more expense than, his predecessor by half 
a century must have incurred on a journey of two 
hundred miles, for which the latter was paid eighty, 
and the former eight hundred dollars. 

" Nor was this all. The steamboat routes, though 
much more swiftly and cheaply traversed, were nearly 
twice — sometimes thrice — the length of the stage 
and horseback roads they superseded ; and as the 
law said at first, and continued to say, that they 
were to charge mileage ^ by the usually-travelled 
route,' they now charged and received twice as much 
for travelling five days in a sumptuous cabin, replete 
with every luxury, as their fathers paid for roughing 
it over the mountains in fifteen to twenty days at a 
far greater cost. Col. Benton, — who deemed himself 
and meant to be an honest man, — somewhere about 
1836, made a claim on the treasury for about two 
thousand dollars which (he computed) was required 
to bring up his mileage in past years to a par with the 
charges of others ; and this amount was allowed and 
paid him. 

" Said First Comptroller Elisha Whittlesey to me, 



168 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

near the close of his long, upright, and useful public 
life, ' Even Mr. Calhoun has increased his charge for 
mileage since the old horseback and stage-coach days ; 
and there is just one man in Congress who charges 
Inileage now as all did then : that man is Henry Clay. 

" Getting into the House, I had access to the 
schedules of compensation and mileage which (though 
they are said to be printed) were not (and are not) 
easily found by outsiders ; and I resolved to improve 
my opportunity. So I hired a reporter to transcribe 
them ; and (using as a basis of comparison the 
United-States topographer's official statement of the 
distances from Washington, by the most direct mail- 
route, of each post-office in the country) I aimed to 
show exactly how much could be saved, in the case of 
each member, by computing mileage on the most 
direct post-route, instead of ' the usually-travelled 
route.' This expose^ when prepared, was transmitted 
to New York, duly appeared in ' The Tribune,' and so 
came back to Washington. 

" I had expected that it would kick up some dust; 
but my expectations were far outrun. It happened 
that two of our Whig members from Ohio had been 
run out by close votes at the recent election (October, 
1848), and that the crooked mileage they charged had 
been used with effect by their opponents in the can- 
vass. It might be all right for them to charge mile- 



MK. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 169 

age from the heart of Ohio around by Lake Erie to 
Washington, when the government had constructed 
a first-rate national road from the vicinity of Balti- 
more due west through Zanesville and Columbus to 
Indianapolis ; but the people didn't or wouldn't see 
it. These beaten sore-heads were specially prompt 
and eager in preaching a crusade against me on the 
floor." 

Mr. Greeley says, " Rarely has our country been 
served by a more upright man than Hon. Jacob 
Collamore of Vermont. So enormous was this evil, 
that this good man had become involved in it ; and 
he made complaint to me as follows : — 

" ' Is it not hard that I should be held up to the pub- 
lic as a swindler ? Look at the facts. I live in Wood- 
stock. I take the stage to Windsor, twenty-two miles, 
where I strike the nearest railroad. I ride thence by 
rail to Boston, from Boston to New York, from New 
York to Washington. It is the easiest and quickest 
route I can take, — the natural route of travel. I 
charge for the miles I actually travel, — not one more. 
Why is not this right ? ' 

'*• ' Judge,' I responded, ' now hear me. Your pred- 
ecessors, I happen to know, took stage from Wood- 
stock to Rutland, from Rutland to Troy, thence by 
steamboat to N&w York, thence by railroad to Washing- 
ton. It is now cheaper and easier for you to go by 

16 



170 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

Boston, — three hundred miles farther. Will you tell 
me why you should be paid two hundred and forty 
dollars more per annum because this cheaper and 
easier route has lately been opened ? I concede you 
the advantage of the improved transit. I protest 
against your charging two hundred and forty dollars, 
and the people paying it therefor. That is not just.' 

" The only answer I ever received to this way of 
putting the case was, ' Such is the law.' But Congress 
was master of the law ; able at any time to make it 
just ; therefore bound to make it just. It was the 
object of my expose to compel such adjustment. 

" Gen. J. J. McKay of North Carolina once came 
across to my seat. He was a stern proslavery Dem- 
ocrat ; and it was not the habit of such to waste 
civilities on me. 

" ' Mr. Greeley,' he said, * you have printed me as 
charging seven miles more than the actual distance 
from my home to Washington. The fact is not so. I 
charge precisely as you say is just, — by the shortest 
mail-route ; but I live seven miles beyond my post- 
office, and I charge from my own house.' 

" ' How could I know that ? ' I inquired. 

" ' You could not,' he replied. ' I am not blaming 
you : on the contrary, I thank you for what you have 
done. It was needed, and will do good. I only 
wished that you should know the facts.' " 



ME. GREELEY IN CONGEESS. ITl 

Mr. Greeley did not first introduce the mileage 
question to the House. This was done by Hon. Wil- 
liam Sawyer of Ohio. He had been annoyed by an 
article published in " The Tribune " on his habit of 
eating a luncheon in the House behind the speaker's 
chair. He was further grieved by the introduction 
of Mr. Greeley's bill, though that stated correctly the 
diiference between his mileage as charged and what 
it would be if computed by the most direct routes. 
There was a blunder in the case of his nearest Whig 
neighbor, Hon. Robert C. Schenck, whose overcharge 
was not made as much as it should be. Schenck 
arose, and offered to swap with his colleague if that 
would afford him any satisfaction. It afforded none. 

It has already been stated that Mr. Greeley did not 
favor Gen. Taylor's nomination ; and had he not 
chanced to attend a Whig meeting in Yauxhall Gar- 
den, where he was loudly called for, and where he 
made the following speech, he probably would not 
have been nominated for Congress, which would have 
saved him some rencounters with others on that 
floor : — 

" I trust, fellow-citizens, I shall never be afraid nor 
ashamed to meet a Whig assemblage, and express my 
sentiments on the political questions of the day ; and, 
although I have had no intimation till now that my 
presence here was expected or desired, I am the more 



172 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

ready to answer your call, since I have heard intima- 
tions, even from this stand, that there was some 
mystery, in my course to be cleared np, — some 
astounding revelation with regard to it to be expected. 
And our eloquent friend from Kentucky even volun- 
teered, in his remarks, to see me personally, and get 
me right. If there be indeed any mystery in the 
premises, I will do my best to dispel it ; but I have, 
in truth, nothing to reveal. I stated in announcing 
Gen. Taylor's nomination, the day after it was made, 
that I would support it if I saw no other way to defeat 
the election of Lewis Cass. That pledge I have ever 
regarded. I shall faithfully redeem it ; and, since there 
is now no chance remaining that any other than Gen. 
Taylor or Gen. Cass can be elected, I shall henceforth 
support the ticket nominated at Philadelphia, and do 
what I can for its election. 

" But I have not changed my opinion of the nomina- 
tion of Gen. Taylor. Personally I have ever spoken 
of him with respect. But 1 believe it was unwise 
and unjust. I believe a candidate could and should 
have been chosen more deserving, more capable, more 
popular. I cannot pretend to support him with enthu- 
siasm ; for I do not feel any. 

" Yet, while I frankly avow that I would do little 
merely to make Gen. Taylor president, I cannot forget 
that others stand or fall with him, and that among 



MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 173 

them are Fillmore and Fish and Patterson, with 
whom I have battled for the Wing cause ever since I 
was entitled to vote, and to whom I cannot now be 
unfaithful. 

" And then the question of free soil : what shall be 
the fate of that ? I presume there are here some free- 
soil men " ["Yes, yes ! all free-soil "] : " I mean those 
to whom the question of extending or restricting slavery 
outweighs all other considerations. And I appeal to 
every free-soil Whig to ask himself this question : How 
would South Carolina and Texas wish you to vote ? 
Can you doubt your bitter adversaries would rejoice to 
hear that,you had resolved to break off from the Whig 
party, and permit Gen. Cass to be chosen president, 
with an obedient Congress ? I cannot doubt it ; and 
I cannot believe that a wise or worthy course which 
my bitterest adversaries would gladly work out for 
me. 

" Of Gen. Taylor's soundness on this question I feel 
no assurance, and can give none ; but I believe him 
clearly pledged by his letters to leave legislation to 
Congress, and not attempt to control by his veto the 
policy of the country. I believe a Whig Congress 
will not consent to extend slavery, and that a Whig 
president will not go to war with Congress and the 
general spirit of his party. So believing, I shall sup- 
port the Whig nominations with a view to the triumph 

15* 



174 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

of free soil ; trusting tliat the day is not distant when 
an amendment of the Federal Constitution will give 
the appointment of postmasters and other local officers 
to the people, and strip the president of the enormous 
and anti-republican patronage which now causes the 
whole political action of the country to hinge upon 
its presidential elections. Such are my views ; such 
will be my course. I trust it will no longer be pre- 
tended that there is any mystery about them." 

Mr. Greeley's nomination was received with much 
eclat^ especially by thinking, literary, and laboring 
men. Though not as universally known then as at 
the present time, yet he was better known than almost 
any other candidate for Congress. 

After Mr. Greeley's election, he issued the following 
card to the electors of his district : — 

" The undersigned, late a candidate for Congress, 
respectfully returns his thanks, — first, to his political 
opponents for the uniform kindness and consideration 
with which he was treated by them throughout the 
canvass, and the unsolicited suffrages with which he 
was honored by many of them ; secondly, to the great 
mass of his political brethren for the ardent, enthusi- 
astic, and effective support which they rendered him ; 
and, lastly, to that small portion of the Whig electors 
who saw fit to withhold from him their votes, thereby 



MB. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 175 

nearly or quite neutralizing the support he received 
from the party. Claiming for himself the right to 
vote for or against any candidate of his as his own 
sense of right and duty shall dictate, he very freely 
accords to all others the same liberty, without offence 
or inquisition. 

" During the late canvass, I have not, according to 
my best recollection, spoken of myself, and have not 
replied in any way to any sort of attack or imputation. 
I have in no manner sought to deprecate the objec- 
tions, nor to soothe the terrors, of that large and most 
influential class who deem my advocacy of land-reform 
and social re-organization synonymous with infidelity 
and systematic robbery. To have entered upon ex- 
planations or vindications of my views on these sub- 
jects in the crisis of a great national struggle which 
taxed every energy, and demanded every thought, 
comported neither with my leisure nor my inclination. 

" Neither have I seen fit at any time to justify nor 
allude to my participation in the efforts made here last 
summer to aid the people of Ireland in their antici- 
pated struggle for liberty and independence. I shall 
not do so now. What I did then in behalf of the 
Irish millions, I stand ready to do again, so far as my 
means will permit, when a similar opportunity, with a 
like prospect of success, is presented ; and not for 
them only, but for any equally oppressed and suffering 



176 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

people on the face of the earth. If any ' extortion and 
plunder ' were contrived and perpetrated in the meet- 
ings for Ireland at Vauxhall last season, I am wholly 
unconscious of it ; though I ought to be as well 
informed as to the alleged ' extortion and plunder ' as 
most others, whether my information were obtained in 
the character of conspirator or that of victim. I feel 
impelled, however, by the expressions employed in Mr. 
Brooks's card, to state that I have found nothing like 
an inclination to ' extortion and plunder ' in the coun- 
cils of the leading friends of Ireland in this city, and 
nothing like a suspicion of such baseness among the 
thousands who sustained and cheered them in their 
efforts. All the suspicions and imputations to which 
those have been subjected who freely gave their 
money and their exertions in aid of the generous 
though ineffectual efforts for Ireland's liberation have 
originated with those who never gave that cause a 
prayer or a shilling, and have not yet travelled beyond 
them. " Respectfully, 

" Horace Greeley. 

" New York, Nov. 8, 1848." 

It is not the object of the writer to pronounce a 
panegyric upon Horace G-reeley, but to recount in 
a plain and simple manner who he is and what he 
lias done. He had been prompt in entering the 
House, as he took the oath and his seat on the first day 



ME. GREELEY, IN CONGRESS. 177 

of the session : and he was in " for business ; " for the 
next day he hiformed the House that he proposed to 
introduce a bill to prevent speculation in the public 
lands, and to secure " homesteads " to actual settlers 
upon the same. Eight days after, he introduced the 
following bill : — 

" 1. That any citizen, and any alien who had de- 
clared his intention of becoming a citizen, may file a 
pre-emption claim to a hundred and sixty acres of 
public land, settle upon it, improve it, and have the 
■privilege of buying it at any time within seven years 
of filing the claim, at the government price of a dollar 
and a quarter per acre, provided that he is not the 
owner or claimant of any other real estate. 

" 2. That the land-office where the claim is filed 
shall issue a warrant of pre-emption, securing the 
claimant in seven years' possession. 

" 3. That, after five years' occupancy, a warrant- 
holder who makes oath of his intention to reside on 
and cultivate his land for life shall become the owner 
of any forty acres of his claim which he may select; 
the head of a family, eighty acres. 

" 4. That the price of public lands, when not sold to 
actual settlers, shall be five dollars per acre. 

" 5. That false affidavits, made to procure land under 
the provisions of this bill, shall be punished by three 
years' hard labor i\\ State-prison, by a fine not exceed- 



178 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 

ing a thousand dollars, and by the loss of the land 
fraudulently obtained." 

Dec. 16, the following notice appeared in " The 
Tribune: " " In reference to many requests for copies 
of the president's message and accompanying docu- 
ments, I desire to state that such message and docu- 
ments are expected to cover twelve to fourteen hundred 
printed octavo pages, and to include three maps, the 
engraving of which will probably delay the publication 
for two or three weeks yet. I shall distribute my 
share of them as soon as possible, and make them go 
as far as they will ; but I cannot satisfy half the de- 
mands upon me. As each senator will have nearly 
two hundred copies, while representatives have but 
about sixty each, applications to senators, especially 
from the smaller States, are obviously the most promis- 
ing." 

Reference has already been had to Mr. Greeley's 
expose of the mileage swindle. I find in his " Whig 
Almanac " for 1850 the following additional statement 
upon this subject, which shows how earnest he was to 
save money to the government, and how zealously he 
argued for honesty : — 

" Early in December I called on the sergeant-at- 
arms for some money on account, he being paymaster 
of the Souse, The schedule used by that officer was 
placed before me, showiug the amount of mileage 



MR. GEEELEY IN CONGRESS. 179 

respectively accorded to every member of the House. 
Many of these amounts struck me as excessive ; and I 
tried to recollect if any publication of all the allow- 
ances in like case had ever been made through the 
journals, but could not remember any such publicity. 
On inquiry, I was informed that the amounts were 
regularly published in a certain document entitled 
' The Public Accounts,' of which no considerable num- 
ber was printed, and which was obviously not intended 
for popular distribution. (It is even omitted in this 
document for the year 1848, printed since I published 
my expose ; so that I can now find it in no public doc- 
ument whatever.) I could not remember that I had 
aver seen a copy, though one had been obtained and 
used by my assistant in making up last year's ' Alma- 
nac' It seemed to me, therefore, desirable that the 
facts should be brought to the knowledge of the public ; 
and I resolved that it should be done. 

"But how ? To have picked out a few of what 
seemed to me the most flagrant cases of overcharge, 
and print these alone, would be to invite and secure 
the reputation of partiahty, partisanship, and personal 
animosity. No other course seemed so fair as to print 
the mileage of each member, with necessary elucida- 
tions. I accordingly employed an ex-clerk in one of 
the departments, and instructed him to make out a 
tabular expose as follows : — 



180 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

" 1. Name of each member of the House. 

" 2. Actual distance from his residence to Washing- 
ton by the shortest post-route. 

" 3. Distance for which he is allowed and paid 
mileage. 

" 4. Amount of mileage received by him. 

" 5. Excess of mileage so received over what would 
have been if the distance had been computed by the 
shortest or most direct mail-route. 

'' The expose was made out accordingly, and 
promptly forwarded to ' The Tribune,' in which it 
appeared." 

Mr. Greeley did not charge that members had 
charged mileage contrary to law, but, on the coii.- 
trary, admitted its legality. He said, ''The members 
are all honorable men : if any irreverent infidel 
should doubt it, we can silence him by referring to 
the prefix to their names in the newspapers ; and we 
presume each has charged just what the law allows 
him. That law expressly says that each shall receive 
eight dollars for every twenty miles travelled in com- 
ing to and returning from Congress ' by the usually- 
travelled route ; ' and of course, if the route usually 
travelled from California to Washington is around 
Cape Horn, or the members from that embryo State 
shall choose to think it is, they will each be entitled to 
charge some twelve thousand dollars mileage per ses- 



]\m. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 181 

sion accordingly. We assume that each has charged 
precisely what the law allows him ; and thereupon we 
press home the question, '•Ought not that law to be 
amended?^ " 

This effort to save money to the country on the 
mileage question aroused the ire of the old politicians, 
and they opposed all resolutions of amendment. Nor 
was it so small a matter as it might seem at first sight ; 
for the whole number of miles charged for going 
round by " Robin Hood's barn," so to speak, was 
183,031, which, at forty cents a mile, amounted to 
$73,492.60. 

At length, the rage of Congress broke forth upon the 
^mileage question ; and a long and sharp debate fol- 
lowed, some contending that the subject could not be 
debated at all; and others, if it could, demanded what 
should be done about it. At length, Mr. Turner from 
Illinois, who had drawn $998.40, moved a series of 
resolutions, one of which was the following : -#- 

'''Resolved^ That a publication made in ' The New- 
York Tribune ' on the day of December, 1848, in 

which the mileage of members is set forth and com- 
mented on, be referred to a committee, with instruc- 
tions to inquire into and report whether said publication 
does not amount, in substance, to an allegation of 
fraud against most of the members of this House in 
the matter of their mileage ; and if, in the judgment 

16 



182 LIFE OF HORACE GBEELEY. 

of the committee, it does amount to an allegation of 
fraud, then to inquire into it, and report whether that 
allegation is true or false.". 

Mr. Turner introduced his resolutions in a fierce 
speech, and altogether with such personal reflections 
as did not become an impartial debater ; from which I 
select the following : " He now wished to call the 
attention of the House particularly to these charges 
made by the editor of ' The New- York Tribune,' most 
if not all of which charges he intended to show were 
absolutely false ; and that the individual who made 
them had either been actuated by the low, base, 
grovelling, and malignant desire to represent the 
Congress of the nation in a false and unenviable light 
before the country and the world, or that he had been 
actuated by motives still more base, — by the desire of 
acquiring an ephemeral notoriety by blazoning forth 
to the world what the writer attempted to show was 
fraud. The whole article abounded in gross errors 
and wilfully-false statements, and was evidently 
prompted by motives as base, unprincipled, and cor- 
rupt as ever actuated an individual in wielding his 
pen for the public press. 

"Perhaps the gentleman (he begged pardon), or 
rather the individual, — perhaps the thing that penned 
that article was not aware that his (Mr. Turner's) por- 
tion of the country was not cut up by railroads, and 



MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 183 

travelled by stage-coaches and other direct means of 
public conveyance, like the omnibuses in the city of 
New York, between all points. They had no other 
channel of communication except the mighty lakes 
or rivers of the West ; he could not get here in any 
other way. The law on the subject of mileage 
authorized the members to charge upon the most 
direct usually-travelled route. Now, he ventured the 
assertion, that there was not an individual in his 
district who ever came to this city, or to any of the 
north-eastern cities, who did not come by the way of 
the lakes or the rivers. 

" He did not know but he was engaged in a very 
small business. A gentleman near him suggested that 
the writer of this article would not be believed any- 
how ; that, therefore, it was no slander. But his con- 
stituents, living tv^o or three thousand miles distant, 
might not be aware of the facts ; and therefore it was 
that he had deemed it necessary to repel the slander- 
ous charges and imputations of fraud, so far as they 
concerned him." 

The House now was pretty fully aroused ; and some- 
thing like the following colloquy ensued : — 

" Mr. Thompson of Indiana moved that the resolu- 
tions be laid on the table. The yeas and nays were 
asked and ordered, and, being taken, were, — yeas, 
twenty-eight ; nays, a hundred and twenty-eight. 



184 LIFE OF HOKACE GREELEY. 

" And, the question recurring on the demand for 
the previous question, — 

" Mr. Fries inquired of the speaker whether the 
question was susceptible of division. 

" The speaker said that the question could be taken 
separately on each resolution. 

" A number of members here requested Mr. Evans 
to withdraw the demand for the previous question ; 
i.e., permit Mr. Greeley to speak. 

" Mr. Evans declined to withdraw the motion, and 
desired to state the reason why he djd so. The rea- 
son was, that the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Greeley) had spoken to an audience to which the 
members of this H-ouse could not speak. If the gen- 
tleman wished to assail any member of this House, 
let him do so here. 

" The speaker interposed, and was imperfectly 
heard, but was understood to say that it was out of 
order to refer personally to gentlemen on this floor. 

" Mr. Evans said he would refer to the editor of 
' Tiie Tribune,' and he insisted that the gentleman 
was not entitled to reply." 

(Loud cries from all parts of the House, " Let him 
speak ! " with mingling dissent.) 

" The question was then taken on the demand for 
the previous question. 

" But the House refused to second it. 



MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 185 

" Mr. Greeley, after alluding to the comments that 
had been made upon the article in ' The Tribune ' 
relative to the subject of mileage, and the abuse 
which had notoriously been practised relating to it, 
said he had heard no gentleman quote one word in 
that article imputing an illegal charge to any member 
of this House, imputing any thing but a legal, proper 
charge. The whole ground of the argument was 
this : Ought not the law to be changed ? ought not 
the mileage to be settled by the nearest route, instead 
of what was called the usually-travelled route, which 
authorized a gentleman coming from the centre of 
Ohio to go around by Sandusky, Albany, New York, 
Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and charge mileage 
upon that route ? He did not object to any gentle- 
man's taking that course if he saw fit ; but was that 
the route upon which the mileage* ought to be com- 
puted ? 

" Mr. Turner interposed, and inquired if the gen- 
tleman wrote that article. 

*' Mr. Greeley replied, that the introduction to the 
article on mileage was written by himself: the tran- 
script from the books of this House and from the 
accounts of the Senate was made by a reporter, at his 
direction. That reporter, who was formerly a clerk 
in the post-office department (Mr. Douglass Howard), 
had taken tlie latest book in the department, which 

16* -s^ 



186 LIFE OF HOBACE GREELEY. 

contained the distances of the several post-offices in 
the country from Washington ; and from that book 
he had got — honestly, he knew, though it might not 
have been entirely accurate in an instance or two — 
the official list of the distances of the several post- 
offices from this city. In every case, the post-office 
of the member, whether of the Senate or the House, 
had been looked out, his distance as charged set down, 
then the post-office referred to, and the actual, honest 
distance by the shortest route set down opposite, and 
then the computation made how much the charge was 
an excess, not of legal mileage, but of what would be 
legal if the mileage were computed by the nearest 
mail-route. 

" Mr. King of Georgia desired, at this point of the 
gentleman's remarks, to say a word. The gentleman 
said that the members charged. Now, he (Mr. King) 
desired to say with reference to himself, that, from 
the first, he had always refused to give any informa- 
tion to the committee on mileage with respect to the 
mileage to which he would be entitled. He had told 
them it was their special duty to settle the matter ; 
that he would have nothing to do with it. He, there- 
fore, had charged nothing. 

" Mr. Greeley (continuing) said he thought all this 
showed the necessity of a new rule on the subject ; 
for here they saw members shirking ofif, — shrinking 



MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 187 

from the responsibility, and throwing it from one 
place to another. Nobody made up the account ; but, 
somehow, an excess of sixty or seventy thousand 
dollars was charged in the accounts for mileage, and 
was paid from the treasury. 

" Mr. King interrupted, and asked if he meant to 
charge him (Mr. King) with shirking. Was that the 
gentleman's remark ? 

" Mr. Greeley replied, that he only said, that, by some 
means or other, this excess of mileage was charged, 
and was paid by the treasury. This money ought to 
be saved. The same rule ought to be applied to 
members of Congress that was applied to other per- 
sons. 

" Mr. King desired to ask the gentleman from New 
York if he had correctly understood his language ; for 
he had heard him indistinctly. He (Mr. King) had 
made the positive statement that he had never had 
any thing to do with reference to the charge of his 
mileage, and he had understood the gentleman from 
New York to speak of shirking from responsibility. 
He desired to know if the gentleman applied that 
term to him. 

'^ Mr. Greeley said he had applied it to no member. 

" Mr. King asked, ' Why make use of the term, 
then ? ' 

" Mr. Greeley's reply to this interrogatory was lost 



188 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

in the confusion which prevailed in consequence of 
members leaving their seats, and coming forward to 
the area in the centre. 

" The speaker called the House to order, and re- 
quested gentlemen to take their seats. 

" Mr. Greeley proceeded. There was no intima- 
tion in the article that any member had made out 
his own account ; but, somehow or other, the accounts 
had been so made up as to make a total excess of 
some sixty or seventy thousand dollars, chargeable 
upon the treasury. The general facts had been 
stated to show that the law ought to be different ; 
and there were several cases cited to show how the 
law worked badly. For instance : From one district in 
Ohio the member formerly charged for four hundred 
miles when he came on his own horse all the way ; 
but now the member from the same district received 
mileage for some eight or nine hundred miles. Now, 
ought that to be so? The whole argument turned on 
this : Now the distances were travelled much easier 
than formerly, and yet more — in many cases much 
more — mileage was charged. The gentleman from 
Ohio who commenced this discussion had made the 
point that there was some defect, some miscalculation, 
in the estimate of distances. He could not help it : 
they had taken the post-office books, and relied on 
them ; and if any member of the press had picked 



MH. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 189 

out a few members of this House, and held up their 
charges for mileage, it would have been considered 
invidious. 

" Mr. Turner called the attention of the member 
from New York to the fact that the postmaster-general 
himself had thrown aside that post-office book in conse- 
quence of its incorrectness. He asked the gentleman 
if he did not know that fact. 

" Mr. Greeley replied, that the article itself stated 
that the department did not charge mileage upon that 
book. Every possible excuse and mitigation had been 
given in the article ; but he appealed to the Plouse, — 
they were the masters of the law, — why would they 
not change it, and make it more just and equal? 

" Mr. Sawyer wished to be allowed to ask the gen- 
tleman from New York a question. His complaint 
was, that the article had done him injustice by setting 
him down as some three Imndred miles nearer the 
seat of government than his colleague (Mr. Schenck), 
although his colleague had stated before the House 
that he (Mr. Sawyer) resided some sixty or seventy 
miles farther. Now, he wanted to know why the 
gentleman had made this calculation against him, and 
in favor of his colleague. 

'' Mr. Greeley replied, that he begged to assure the 
gentleman from Ohio that he did not think he had 
ever been in his thoughts from the day he had come 



190 LIFE OP HOE ACE GREELEY. 

here until the present day ; but he had taken the 
figures from the post-office book, as transcribed by a 
former clerk in the post-office department." 

Jan. 4, " Congress showed its spite " (says Mr. 
Parton in his " Life of Mr. Greeley ") " at the mileage 
expose in a truly extraordinary manner. At the last 
session of this very Congress, the mileage of the 
messengers appointed by the electoral colleges to 
bear their respective votes for president and vice- 
president to Washington had been reduced to twelve 
and a half cents per mile each way. But now it 
was perceived by members that either the mileage 
of the messengers must be restored, or their own 
reduced. ' Accordingly,' wrote Mr. Greeley in one 
of his letters, ' a joint resolution was promptly sub- 
mitted to the Senate, doubling the mileage of mes- 
sengers ; and it went through that exalted body very 
quickly and easily. I had not noticed that it had been 
definitively acted on at all until it made its appearance 
in the House to-day, and was driven through with inde- 
cent rapidity well befitting its character. No commit- 
tee was allowed to examine it ; no opportunity was 
afforded to discuss it : but by whip and spur, previous 
question, and brute force of numbers, it was rushed 
through the necessary stages, and sent to the president 
for his sanction.' 

" The injustice of this impudent measure is appar- 



MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 191 

ent from the fact, that, on the reduced scale of com- 
pensation, messengers received from ten to twenty 
dollars a day during the period of their necessary 
absence from home. The messenger from Maine, for 
instance, brings the vote of his State five hundred and 
ninety-five miles, and need not be more than eight 
days absent from his business, at an expense certainly 
not exceeding sixty dollars in all. The reduced com- 
pensation was $148.75, paying his expenses, and giving 
him eleven dollars per day over." 

Another debate ensued on the mileage question ; but 
it took a ludicrous phase, and finally terminated in 
the following colloquy on dead-heads : — 

" Mr. Murphy said, when he came on, he left New 
York at five o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived at 
Philadelphia to supper ; and then, entering the car 
again, he slept very comfortably, and was here in the 
morning at eight o'clock. He lost no time. The 
mileage was ninety dollars. 

" Mr. Root would inquire of the gentleman from 
New York whether he took his passage and came on 
as what the agents sometimes call a ' dead-head.' 
[Laughter.] 

" Mr. Murphy replied (amid considerable merri- 
ment and laughter) that he did not know of more 
than one member belonging to the New-York delega- 
tion to whom that application could properly attach. 



192 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 



a 



Mr. Root said, although his friend from New 
York was tolerably expert in every thing he treated 
of, yet he might not understand the meaning of the 
term he used. He would inform him that the term 
' dead-head ' was applied by the steamboat gentleman 
to passengers who were allowed to travel without pay- 
ing their fare. [A great deal of merriment prevailed 
throughout the hall upon this allusion, as it manifestly 
referred to the two editors, — the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, Mr. Levin, and the gentleman from New 
York, Mr. Greeley.] But Mr. Root (continuing to 
speak) said he was opposed to all personalities: he 
never indulged in any such thing himself, and he never 
would favor such indulgence on the part of other gen- 
tlemen. 

" Mr. Levin. — I want merely to say — 

" Mr. Root. — I am afraid " — 

[The confusion of voices and merriment which 
followed completely drowned the few words of pleasant 
explanation delivered here by Mr. Levin.] 

" Mr. Greeley addressed the chair. 

"The Chairman. — -The gentleman from New York 
will suspend his remarks till the committee shall come 
to order. 

" Order being restored, — 

*' Mr. Greeley said he did not pretend to know 
what the editor of ' The Philadelphia Sun,' the gen- 



MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 193 

tleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Levin), liad done; 
but, if any gentleman anxious about the matter 
would inquire at the railroad-oflBces in Philadelphia 
and Baltimore, he would there be informed that he 
(Mr. Greeley) never had passed over any portion of 
either of those roads free of charge, — never in the 
world. One of the gentlemen interested had once 
told him he might ; but he never had. 

'• Mr. Embree next obtained the floor, but gave way 
for Mr. Haralson, who moved that the committee rise. 

" Mr. Greeley appealed to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Haralson) to withhold his motion while 
he might, by the courtesy of the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Embree), make a brief reply to the 
allusions which had been made to him and his course 
upon this subject. He asked only for five minutes ; 
but 

" Mr. Haralson adhered to his motion, which was 
agreed to." 

It seemed as though this mileage question would 
never be settled ; for it came up a third time upon a 
discussion upon the slave-trade, when Mr. Greeley 
defended himself in a speech of considerable power 
and great eloquence, from which I select the follow- 
ing : — 

" The gentleman saw fit to speak of my vocation as 
an editor, and to charge me with editing my paper 

17 



194 LIFE OF HORACE GBEELEY. 

from my seat on this floor. Mr. Chairman, I do not 
believe there is one member in this hall who has writ- 
ten less in his seat this session than I have done. I 
have been too much absorbed in the (to me) novel 
and exciting scenes around me to write, and have 
written no editorial here. Time enough for that, sir, 
before and after your daily sessions. But the gentle- 
man either directly charged or plainly insinuated that 
I have neglected my duties as a member of this House 
to attend to my own private business. I meet this 
charge with a positive and circumstantial denial. 
Except a brief sitting one private-bill day, I have not 
been absent one hour in all, nor the half of it, from 
the deliberations of this House. I have never voted 
for an early adjournment, nor to adjourn over. My 
name will be found recorded on every call of the 
yeas and nays. And, as tlie gentleman insinuated a 
neglect of my duties as a member of a committee (on 
public lands), I appeal to its chairman for proof, to 
any that need it, that I have never been absent from 
a meeting of that committee, nor any part of one ; 
and that I have rather sought than shunned labor 
upon it. And I am confident, that, alike in my seat 
and out of it, I shall do as large a share of the work 
devolving upon this House as the gentleman from 
Mississippi will deem desirable. 

'' And now, Mr. Chairman, a word on the main 



MB. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 195 

question before us. I know very well, I knew from 
the first, what a low, contemptible, demagoguing 
business this, of attempting to save public money, 
always is. It is not a task for gentlemen : it is 
esteemed rather disreputable even for editors. Your 
gentlemanly work is spending, lavishing, distributing, 
taking. Savings are always such vulgar, beggarly, 
twopenny affairs, that there is a sorry and stingy look 
about tliem most repugnant to all gentlemanly in- 
stincts. And besides, if they happen to hit the right 
place, it is always, ' Strike higher ! ' ' Strike lower ! ' 
To be generous with other people's money, generous 
to self and friends especially, — that is the way to be 
popular and commended. Go ahead, and never care 
for expense : if your debts become inconvenient, you 
can repudiate, and blackguard your creditors as 
descended from Judas Iscariot ! Ah ! Mr. Chairman, 
I was not rocked in the cradle of gentility.' ' 

I close this chapter of Mr. Greeley's three months 
in Congress, in which he did many things for the 
public good which have not been here enumerated, 
with the conclusion of his address to his constituents. 
Enough has, however, been shown to exhibit the 
honesty and integrity of the man. 

" My work as your servant is done : whether well, or 
ill, it remains for you to judge. Yery likely I gave 
the wrong vote on some difficult and complicated 



196 LIFE OF HORACE -GREELEY. 

questions to which I was called upon to respond ay or 
no with hardly a moment's warning. If so, you can 
detect and condemn the error ; for my name stands 
recorded in the divisions hy yeas and nays on every 
public and all but one private bill (which was laid on 
the table the moment the sitting opened, and on 
which my name had just been passed as I entered the 
hall). 

'^ I wish it were the usage among us to publish less 
of speeches, and more of propositions and votes there- 
upon : it would give the mass of the people a much 
clearer insight into the management of their public 
affairs. 

" My successor being already chosen and com- 
missioned, I shall hardly be suspected of seeking your 
further kindness ; and I shall be heartily rejoiced if he 
shall be able to combine equal zeal in your service 
with greater efficiency, equal fearlessness with greater 
popularity. That I have been somewhat annoyed at 
times by some of the consequences of my mileage 
exposS is true ; but I have never wished to recall it, 
nor have I felt that I owed an apology to any ; and I 
am quite confident, that, if you had sent to Washing- 
ton (as you doubtless might have done) a more 
sternly honest and fearless representative, he would 
have made himself more unpopular with a large por- 
tion of the House than I did. I thank you heartily 



MR. GREELEY IN CONGRESS. 197 

for the glimpse of public life which your favor has 
afforded me, and hope to render it useful henceforth, 
not to myself only, but to the public. 

" In ceasing to be your agent, and returning with 
renewed zest to my private cares and duties, I have a 
single additional favor to ask, not of you especially, 
but of all ; and I am sure my friends at least will 
grant it without hesitation. It is that you and they 
will oblige me henceforth by remembering that my 
name is simply * Horace Greeley.' " 
17* 



CHAPTER XII. 

MR. GREELEY AND HIS BEGGARS AND BORROWERS. 

New York and Beggars. — A Few of the Sufferers. — Begging for Churches. 
— Chronic Beggars. — Borrowers. — Not to injure the Needy. — A Case 
stated. — Borrowers of Strangers never pay. — A Beggar's Letter. — 
Church- Members Begging or BoiTowing. — Associations can deal with 
Beggars better than Lidividuals can. — Does not condemn Borrowing 
wholly. — A Duty to lend sometimes. — Remarks. 

HORACE GREELEY had his share of trashy 
beggars, as all men do who are in any way con- 
nected with public life. While the writer could tell 
an amusing tale of beggars by whom he has been 
beset, he cannot tell Mr. Greeley's plagues of this kind 
better than he has told them in his " Recollections of 
a Busy Life ; " and therefore the reader shall have 
them in Mr. Greeley's own style. Here they are : — 
"New York is the metropolis of beggary. The 
wrecks of incapacity, miseducation, prodigality, and 
profligacy, drift hither from either continent, and are 
finally stranded on our shore. Has a pretentious 
family in Europe a member who is felt as a burden, or 

198 



MB. Greeley's beggars and borrowers. 199 

loathed as a disgrace, money is somehow scraped 
together to ship him off to New York ; taking good 
care that there be not enough to enable him to ship 
himself back again. Does a family collapse anywhere 
in the interior or along the coast of our country, leav- 
ing a helpless widow and fatherless children to strug- 
gle with difficulties utterly unexpected and unprepared 
for, — though too proud to work, or even beg, where 
they are known, — they are ready enough to try their 
fortune and hide their fall in this great emporium, where 
they would gladly do (if they could get it) the very 
work which they reject as degrading in the home of 
their bygone prosperity and consequence. Though 
living is here most expensive, and only eminent skill 
or efficiency can justify migration hither on the part 
of any but single young men, yet mechanics and labor- 
ers of very moderate ability, and even widows with 
small children, hie hither in reckless defiance of the 
fact that myriads have done so before them, — at least 
nineteen-twentieths of them only to plunge thereby 
into deeper, more squalid, hopeless misery than they 
had previously known. Want is a hard master any- 
where ; but nowhere else are the sufferings, the woes, 
the desperation, of utter need, so trying as in a great 
city : and they are pre-eminently so in this city, because 
the multiplicity of the destitute benumbs the heart of 
charity, and precludes attention to any one's wants ; 



200 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

while each is absorbed in his own cares and efforts to 
such extent, that he knows nothing of the neighbors 
who may be starving to death, with barely a brick wall 
between him and them. 

" The beggars of New York comprise but a small 
proportion of its sufferers from want ; yet they are at 
once very numerous, and remarkably impudent. One 
who would accept a franc in Paris, or a shilling in 
London, with grateful acknowledgments, considers 
himself ill used and insulted if you offer him less than 
a dollar in New York. With thousands beggary is a 
profession, whereof the rudiments were acquired in 
the Old World ; but experience and observation have 
qualified them to pursue it with veteran proficiency 
and success in the New. Even our native beggars 
have a boldness of aspiration, an audacity of con- 
ception, such as the magnificent proportions of our 
lakes and valleys, our mountains and prairies, are cal- 
culated to inspire. I doubt if an Asiatic or Euro- 
pean beggar ever frankly avowed his intent to beg the 
purchase-money of a good farm, though some may 
have invested their gains thus laudably ; but I have 
been solicited by more than one American, who had 
visited this city, from points hundreds of miles distant, 
expressly and avowedly to beg the means of buying a 
homestead. I wish I were certain that none of these 
had more success with others than with me. 



MR. Greeley's beggars and borrowers. 201 

" Begging for churches, for seminaries, for libraries, 
has been one of our most crying nuisances. If there 
■be two hundred negro families living in a city, they 
will get up a Baptist, a Methodist, and perhaps 
an Episcopal or Congregational church ; and, being 
generally poor, they will undertake to build for each 
a meeting-house, and support a clergyman, — in good 
part, of course, by begging, — often in distant cities. 
A dozen boys attending a seminary will form a library 
association or debating club, and then levy on man- 
kind in general for the books they would like to pos- 
sess. Thus, in addition to our resident mendicancy, 
New York is made the cruising-ground, the harvest- 
field, of the high-soaring beggary of a whole continent ; 
while our princely merchants, at some seasons, are 
waited upon by more solicitors of contributions than 
purchasers of goods. Hence our rich men gener- 
ally court and secure a reputation for meanness, 
which may or may not be deserved in a particu- 
lar instance, but which, in any case, is indispensa- 
ble as a protection, like the shell of a tortoise. Were 
they reputed benevolent and free-lianded, they would 
never be allowed time to attend to their business, and 
could not enjoy an hour's peace in the bosom of their 
respective families. 

" The chronic beggars are a bad lot ; but the sys- 
tematic borrowers are far worse. What you give is 



202 LIFE OF HOEACE GEEELEY. 

gone, and soon forgotten : there is the end of it. It 
is presumable that you can spare, or you would have 
withheld it. But you lend (in your greener days) 
with some expectation of being repaid : hence disap- 
pointment and serious loss — sometimes even dis- 
grace — because of your abused faith in human 
nature. I presume no year passes wherein the solvent 
business-men of this city lose so little as ten millions 
of dollars, borrowed of them for a few hours or days, 
as a momentary accommodation, by neighbors and 
acquaintances, who would resent a suggested doubt of 
its punctual repayment, yet who never do repay it. I 
am confident that good houses have been reduced to 
bankruptcy by these most irregular and improvident 
loans. 

" Worse still is the habit of borrowing and lend- 
ing among clerks and young mechanics. A part 
of these are provident, thrifty, frugal, and so save 
money : another and much larger class prefer to * live 
as they go,' and are constantly spending in drink and 
other dissipation that portion of their earnings which 
they should save. When I was a journeyman, I knew 
several who earned more than I did, but who were 
always behind with their board. Men of this class 
are continually borrowing five or ten dollars of their 
frugal acquaintances to invest in a ball, a sleigh-ride, 
an excursion, a frolic ; and a large proportion of 



MR. Greeley's beggars and borrowers. 203 

these loans is never repaid. Millions of dollars, in 
the aggregate, are thus transferred from the pockets 
of the frugal to those of the prodigal ; depriving the 
former of means they are sure to need when they 
come to furnish a house or undertake a business, and 
doing the latter no good, but rather confirming them 
in their evil ways. Such lending should be systemati- 
cally discountenanced and refused. 

" I hate to say any thing that seems calculated to steel 
others against the prayers of the unfortunate and 
necessitous ; yet an extensive, protracted experience 
has led me to the conclusion that nine-tenths of those 
who solicit loans of strangers or casual acquaintances 
are thriftless vagabonds who will never be better oflF 
than at present, or scoundrels who would not pay if 
they were able. In hundreds of cases I have been 
importuned to lend from one dollar up to ten dollars 
to help a stranger who had come to the city on some 
errand or other, had here fallen among thieves (who 
are far more abundant here than they ever were on the 
road from Jerusalem to Jericho), been made drunk, 
and plundered of his last cent, and who asked only 
enough to take him home, when the money would be 
surely and promptly returned. Sometimes I have 
lent the sum required ; in other cases I have refused it : 
but I cannot remember a single instance in which the 
promise to pay was made good. I recollect a case 



204 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

wherein a capable, intelligent New-England mechanic, 
on his way from an Eastern city to work two hundred 
miles up the Erie Railroad, borrowed of me the means 
of saving his children from famine on the way, promis- 
ing to pay it out of his first month's wages ; which he 
took care never to do. This case differs from many 
others only in that the swindler was clearly of a 
better class than that from which the great army of 
borrowers is so steadily and bounteously recruited. 

" In one instance a young man came with the 
usual request, and was asked to state his case. ' I 
am a clerk from New Hampshire,' he began, ' and 
have been for three years employed in Georgia. At 
length, a severe sickness prostrated me ; I lost my 
place; my money was exhausted: and here am I, with 
my wife, without a cent; and I want to borrow enough 
to take me home to my father's house, and I will 
surely repay it.' — ' Stranger,' was the response, ' you 
evidently cannot stay here, and I must help you get 
away. But why say any thing about paying me ? You 
know, and I know, you will never pay a cent.' My 
visitor protested and remonstrated ; but I convinced, 
if I did not convert him. ' Don't you see,' I re- 
joined, ' that you cannot have been three years a clerk 
in a leading mercantile house in Georgia without 
making the acquaintance of merchants doing business 
in this city ? Now, if you were a person likely to 



MR. GREELEY'S BEGGARS AND BORROWERS. 205 

pay, you would apply to and obtain help from those 
merchants whom you know ; not ask help of me, an 
utter stranger.' He did not admit the force of my 
demonstration ; but of course the sequel proved it 
correct. 

" I consider it all but an iaxiom,^that he who asks a 
stranger to lend him money will never pay it ; yet I 
have known an exception. Once, when I was exceed- 
ingly poor and needy, in a season of commercial 
revulsion or ' panic,' I opened a letter from Utica, 
and found therein five dollars, which the writer asked 
me to receive in satisfaction of a loan of that sum 
which I had made him — a needy stranger — on an 
occasion which he recalled to my remembrance. 
Perplexed by so unusual a message, and especially by 
receiving it at such a time, when every one was seek- 
ing to borrow, — no one condescending to pay, — I 
scanned the letter more closely, and at length achieved 
a solution of the problem. The writer was a patient 
in the State Lunatic Asylum. 

" A gushing youth once wrote me to this effect : — 

" * Dear Sir, — Among your literary treasures, you 
have doubtless preserved several autographs of our 
country's late lamented poet, Edgar A. Poe. If so, 
and you can spare one, please enclose it to me, and 
receive the thanks of yours truly.' 

18 



206 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. 

" I promptly responded as follows : — 

" ' Dear Sir, — Among my literary treasures, there 
happens to be exactly one autograph of our country's 
late lamented poet, Edgar A. Poe. It is his note of 
hand for fifty dollars, with my indorsement across the 
back. It cost me exactly $50.75 (including protest) ; 
and you may have it for half that amount. Yours 
respectfully.' 

" That autograph, I regret to say, remains on my 
hands, and is still for sale at first cost, despite the lapse 
of time and the depreciation of our currency. 

" I once received a letter from an utter stranger 
living two hundred miles away, asking me to lend him 
a large sum on a mortgage of his farm, and closing 
thus : — 

" 'P.S. — My religious views are radically antagonist 
to yours ; but I know no member of my own church 
of whom I would so readily, and with such confidence, 
ask such a favor, as of you.' 

" This postscript impelled me, instead of dropping 
the letter quietly into the waste-basket as usual, and 
turning to the next business in order, to answer him 
as follows : — 

" ' Sir, — I have neither the money you ask for, nor 
the inclination to lend it on the security you proffer ; 



ME. Greeley's beggars and borrowers. 207 

and your P.S. prompts the suggestion, that whenever 
I shall be moved to seek favors of the members of 
some other church, rather than of that to which I 
have hitherto adhered, I shall make haste to join that 
other church.' 

" I trust I have here said nothing calculated to stay 
the hand or chill the spirit of heaven-born Charity. 
The world is full of needy, suffering ones, who richly 
deserve compassion ; not to speak of the vagrants, who, 
though undeserving, must not be allowed to starve or 
freeze. I was struck with the response of a man last 
from St. Louis, who recently insisted on being helped 
on to Boston, which he said was his early home, and 
to whom I roughly made answer, ' You need not 
pretend to me that the universe is bankrupt : I know 
better, — know that a man of your natural abilities, if 
he only behaved himself, need not be reduced to 
beggary.' — ' Well, sir,' he quickly rejoined, * I don't 
pretend that I have always done the right thing ; if 
I did, you would know better. All I say is, that I am 
hungry and penniless ; and that, if I can only get back 
to Boston, I can there make a living. That's my 
whole story.' I felt that he had the better reason on 
his side. 

" There must, there will, be heavy drafts made on 
the sympathies and the means of all who can and will 



208 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

give, especially daring a hard, dull winter or a 
' panic.' Every prosperous man should ask himself, 
* How much can I afford to give ? ' and should set 
apart from a tenth to a third of his income for the 
relief of the needy and suffering. Then he should 
search out the most effective channels through which 
to reach those whose privations are greatest, and on 
whom private alms can be wisely and usefully ex- 
pended. There are thousands who ought to go to the 
almshouse at once, — who will be more easily sup- 
ported there than elsewhere ; and it is no charity to 
squander your means on these. A great majority of the 
destitute can be far better dealt with by associations 
than by individuals ; and of good associations for phil- 
anthropic purposes there is, happily, no lack in any 
great city. There remains a scanty residuum of cases 
wherein money or food must be given at once by 
whomsoever happens to be nearest to the sufferer : but 
two-thirds of those who beg from door to door, or who 
write begging-letters, are the very last persons who 
ought to be given even a shinplaster-dime ; and, as a 
general rule, the importunity of a beggar is in inverse 
proportion to his deserving, or even to his need. 

" ' Then you condemn borrowing and lending 
entirely ? ' 

" No, I do not. Many a man knows how to use 
wisely and beneficently means that he does not, while 



MR. GREELEY'S BEGGARS AND BORROWERS. 209 

others do, possess: lending to such, under proper 
safeguards, is most commendable. Many a young 
farmer, who, by working for others, has earned a 
thousand dollars, and saved a good part of it, is now 
prepared to work a farm of his own. He who lends 
such a youth from one to two thousand dollars 
wherewith to purchase a farm, taking a mortgage 
thereon for the amount, and leaving to the young 
farmer his own well-earned means wherewith to buy 
stock and seed, provisions and implements, will often 
enable him to work his way into a modest independ- 
ence, surrounded and blessed by a wife and children, 
himself a useful member of society and a true pillar 
of the State, when he must, but for that loan, have 
remained years longer single and a hireling. So a 
mechanic may often be wisely and safely aided to 
establish himself in business by a timely and well- 
secured loan ; but this should never be accorded him, 
till, by years of patient, frugal industry, he has 
qualified himself for mastery, and proved himself 
worthy of trust. (Of traders there will always be 
too many, though none should ever be able to borrow a 
dollar.) But improvident borrowing and lending are 
among our most prevalent and baneful errors ; and I 
would gladly conduce to their reformation. 

" I hold that it may sometimes be a duty to lend ; 
and yet I judge that at least nine of every ten loans 

18* 



210 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 

to the needy result in loss to the lender, with no sub- 
stantial benefit to the borrower. That the poor often 
suffer from poverty I know, but oftener from lack of 
capacity, skill, management, efficiency, than lack of 
money. Here is an empty-handed youth who wants 
much, and must have it ; but, after the satisfaction of 
his most urgent needs, he wants, above all things, 
abiUty to earn money and take good care of it. He 
thinks his first want is a loan ; but that is a great 
mistake. He is far more certain to set resolutely to 
work without than with that pleasant but baneful 
accommodation. Make up a square issue, ' Work or 
starve,' and he is quite likely to choose work ; 
while, provided he can borrow, he is more likely to 
dip into some sort of speculation or traffic. That he 
thus almost inevitably fools away his borrowed money 
concerns only the unwise lender ; that he is thereby 
confirmed in his aversion to work, and squander 
precious time that should fit him for decided useful- 
ness, is of wider and greater consequence. The 
widow, the orphan, the cripple, the invalid, often need 
alms, and should have them ; but to the innumerable 
hosts of needy, would-be borrowers, the best response 
is Nature's, ' Root, hog, or die ! ' " 

The writer has given the remarks of Mr. Greeley 
on this every-day subject from his " Recollections of 



MB. Greeley's beggars akd borrowers. 211 

a Busy Life ; " and will now add, that he has had some- 
what of a similar experience, and would advise all to 
make it a general rule never to lend or borrow money ; 
for it generally leads to evil, and only evil, and that 
continually. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 

Mr. Greeley discussed Many Subjects. — The Rochester Rappings. — He 
didn't desire a Second Sitting. — Interview with Jenny Lind. — Seance 
at Mr. Greeley's House. — He witnesses a Juggle or Trick. — He deals 
with the Trick. — He thinks the Devil would not be engaged in such 
Business. — Found he could spend his Time more Profitably. — Thinks 
we had better do our Duty to the Living. — Thinks Great Men wrote 
Better while living than since they died. — Their Communications 
Vague and Trivial. — Spirits proved to be Ignorant. — The Great Body 
of Spiritualists made Worse by it. — Spiritualists are Bigots. 

MR. GREELEY has been accused of being 
versatile, and believing many things which 
it does not appear from his writings he ever did 
believe. He discussed many questions, examined 
them, and wrote of them in " The Tribune " as an 
editor should, if he would make a useful and popular 
paper. One of these things which he has been 
reproached as believing in is spiritualism ; but it is 
very clear from what I shall quote from his own pen 
that he never believed in these vagaries and halluci- 
nations. The very term by which he heads the chap- 

212 



ME. GEEELEY AND SPIEITTJALISM. 213. 

ter in which he treats of this subject, glamour^ which 
means " witchery," or " charms," shows that he had 
no faith in " spirit-rappings," or in " spiritualism " 
so called. The following, from his " Recollections of 
a Busy Life," is his account of this matter : — 

" I believe I heard vaguely of what were called 
* the Kochester knockings ' soon after tliey were 
first proclaimed, or testified to, in the spring of 1848 ; 
but they did not attract my attention till, during a brief 
absence from New York, — perhaps while in Congress, 
— 1 perused a connected circumstantial account of the 
alleged phenomena, signed by several prominent citizens 
of Rochester, and communicated by them to ' The 
Tribune,' wherein I read it. It made little impression 
on my mind ; though I never had that repugnance to, 
or stubborn incredulity regarding, occurrences called 
supernatural, which is evinced by many. My conscious- 
ness of ignorance of the extent or limitations of the 
natural is so vivid, that I never could realize that 
difficulty in crediting what are termed miracles which 
many affirm. Doubtless the first person who observed 
the attraction of iron by the magnet supposed he had 
stumbled upon a contradiction to or violation of the 
laws of Nature, when he had merely enlarged his own 
acquaintance with natural phenomena. The fly that 
sees a rock lifted from its bed may fancy himself wit- 
ness of a miracle, when what he sees is merely the 



214 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

interposition of a power, the action of a force, which 
transcends his narrow conceptions, his ephemeral ex- 
perience. I know so very little of Nature, that I cannot 
determine at a glance what is or is not supernatural : 
but I know that things do occur which are decidedly 
superusual ; and I rest in the fact, without being able, 
or feeling required, to explain it. 

" I believe that it was early in 1850 that the Fox 
family — in wliich the so-called ' knockings ' had first 
occurred or been noted, first at the little hamlet known 
as Hydesville, near Newark, Wayne County, N. Y. — 
came to New York, and stopped at a hotel, where I 
called upon them, and heard the so-called ' raps,' but 
was neither edified nor enlightened thereby. Nothing 
transpired beyond the ' rappings ; ' which, even if 
deemed inexplicable, did not much interest me. In 
fact, I should have regretted that any of mi/ departed 
ones had been impelled to address me in the presence 
and hearing of the motley throng of strangers gathered 
around the table on which the ' raps ' were generally 
made. 

" I had no desire for a second ' sitting,' and might 
never have had one ; but my wife — then specially and 
deeply interested in all that pertains to the unseen 
world, because of the recent loss of our darling 
' Pickie ' — visited the Foxes twice or thrice at tlieir 
hotel, and invited them thence to spend some week or 



MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITTJALISM. 215 

SO with her at our bouse. There, along with much 
that seemed trivial, uusatisfactory, and unlike what 
naturally might be expected from the land of souls, I 
received some responses to my questions of a very 
remarkable character, evincing knowledge of occur- 
rences of which no one, not an inmate of our family in 
former years, could well have been cognizant. Most 
of these could have no significance or cogency to 
strangers ; but one of them seems worth narrating. 

" It was the second or third day after the Foxes came 
to our house. I had worked very hard and late at the 
office the night before, reaching home after all others 
were in bed : so I did not rise till all had had breakfast 
and had gone out, my wife included. When I rose at 
last, I took a book, and, reading on a lounge in our 
front-parlor, soon fell into an imperfect doze, during 
which there called a Mrs. Freeman, termed 'a clairvoy- 
ant,' from Boston, with her husband and an invalid 
gentleman. They had together visited Niagara Falls ; 
had seen the Foxes on their way at Rochester ; and 
now, returning, had sought them at their hotel, and 
followed them thence to our house. As they did not 
inquire for me, being unaware of as well as indifferent 
to my presence in the house, they were shown into the 
back-parlor, separated by sliding-doors from tliat in 
which I was ; and they awaited the return of the Foxes 
to accompany them to their hotel, saying, ' We feel 



216 LIFB OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

like intruders here.' This impelled me to rise and go 
into the back-parlor in order to make the strangers 
welcome. Mrs. Freeman had been already, or was 
soon afterward, magnetized by her husband into the 
state termed ' clairvoyance,' wherein she professed to 
see spirits related to those who were put into magnet- 
ic rapport with her. What she reported as of or from 
those spirits might be ever so true or false for aught I 
know. At length — merely to make the strangers 
feel more at their ease — I said, * Mr. Freeman, may 
not I be put into communication with spirits through 
Mrs. Freeman ? ' to which he readily assented, placed 
my hand in hers, made a few passes, and bade me ask 
such questions as I would. As she liad just reported 
the presence of spirit brothers and sisters of others, I 
asked Mrs. Freeman, ' Do you see any brothers or sis- 
ters of mine in the spirit-world V She gazed a minute 
intently, then responded, ' Yes, there is one ; his name 
is Horace ; ' and then proceeded to describe a child 
quite circumstantially. I made no remark when she 
had concluded ; though it seemed to me a very wild 
guess, even had she known that I had barely one de- 
parted brother, that his name was identical with my 
own ; tliough such was the fact. I resumed : ' Mrs. 
Freeman, do you see any more brothers or sisters of 
mine in the spirit-world ? ' She looked again as 
before; then eagerly said, ' Yes, there is another: her 



MB. GREELEY AND SPIBITUALISM. 217 

name is Anna — no, her name is Almira — no (per- 
plexedly), I cannot get the name exactly; yet it 
begins with A.' Now, the only sister I ever lost was 
named Arminda; and she, as well as my brother, died 
before I was born, — he being three and she scarcely 
two years old. They were buried in a secluded rural 
graveyard in Bedford, N.H., about sixty years ago ; 
I and no stone marks their resting-place. Even my wife 
did not know their names ; and certainly no one else 
present but myself did. And, if Mrs. Freeman ob- 
tained one of these names from my mind (as one 
! theory affirms), why not the other as well ? since each 

was there as clearly as the other. 
I " Not long after this, I had called on Mademoiselle 
I Jenny Lind, then a new-comer among us, and was 
I conversing about the current marvel with the late 
I N. P. Willis, while Mademoiselle Lind was devoting 
herself more especially to some other callers. Our 
i conversation caught Mademoiselle Lind's ear, and 
arrested her attention: so, after making some in- 
j quiries, she asked if she could witness the so-called 
( * manifestations.' 

I " I answered, that she could do so by coming to my 

I house in the heart of the city, as Katy Fox was then 

staying with us. She assented, and a time was fixed 

for her call ; at which time she appeared with a 

considerable retinue of total strangers. All were 

19 



218 LIFE OF HORACE GBEELEY. 

soon seated around a table, and the ' rappings ' were 
soon audible and abundant. 

" ' Take your hands from under the table ! ' Ma- 
demoiselle Jenny called across to me in the tone 
and manner of an indifferently-bold arch-duchess. 
' What ? ' I asked, not distinctly comprehending her. 
' Take your hands from under the table ! ' she im- 
periously repeated ; and I now understood that she 
suspected me of causing, by some legerdemain, the 
puzzling concussions. I instantly clasped my hands 
over my head, and there kept them until the sit- 
ting closed, as it did very soon. I need hardly add 
that this made not the smallest difference with the 
' rappings ; ' but I was thoroughly and finally cured 
of any desire to exhibit or commend them to 
strangers. 

" Not long afterward, I witnessed what I strongly 
suspected to be a juggle or trick on the part of a 
* medium,' which gave me a disrelish for the whole 
business, and I have seen very little of it since. I 
never saw a ' spirit-hand,' though persons in whose 
veracity I have full confidence assure me they have 
done so. (I do not say that they were or were not 
deluded or mistal^n.) But I have sat with three 
others around a small table, with 'every one of our 
eight hands lying plainly, palpably, on that table, and 
heard rapid writing with a pencil on paper, which, 



ME. GKEELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 219 

perfectly white, we had just previously placed under 
that table ; and have the next minute picked up that 
paper with a sensible, straightforward message of 
twenty to fifty words fairly written thereon. I do 
not say by whom or by what said message was 
written ; yet I am quite confident that none of 
the persons present, who were visible to mortal eyes, 
wrote it. 

" And here let me deal with the hypothesis of 
jugglery, knee-joint rattling, toe-cracking, &c. I 
have no doubt that pretended ' mediums ' have often 
amazed their visitors by feats of jugglery ; indeed, I 
am confident that I have been present when tliey did 
so. In so far as the hypothesis of spirit-agency rests 
on the integrity of the * mediums,' I cannot deem it 
established. Most of them are persons of no especial 
moral elevation ; and I know that more than one of 
them has endeavored to simulate 'raps' when the 
genuine could not be evoked. Let us assume, then, 
that the ' raps' prove just nothing at all beyond the 
bare fact that sounds have been produced by some 
agency or impulse which we do not fully understand, 
and that all the physical phenomena have been, or 
may be, simulated or paralleled bf such jugglers as 
Houdin, Blitz, the Fakir of Ava, &c. But the amaz- 
ing sleight-of-hand of these accomplished performers 
is the result of protracted, laborious training by pred- 



220 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 

ecessors nearly or quite as adroit and dexterous as 
themselves ; while the ' mediums' are often children 
of tender years, who had no such training, have no 
special dexterity, and some of whom are known to be 
awkward and clumsy in their movements. The 
jugglery hypothesis utterly fails to account for occur- 
rences which I have personally witnessed, to say 
nothing of others." 

Mr. Greeley does not believe that " spirit-rapping " 
is to be ascribed to demoniac influence, though that 
might account for some of these phenomena. As 
proof of these views, lie relates the following : " In 
the township of Wayne, Erie County, near the house 
of my father and brother, there lived a farmer, well 
known to me, named King, who had many good traits, 
and one bad habit, — that of keeping a barrel of 
whiskey in his house, and dealing out the villanous 
fluid at so much per quart or pint to his thirsty 
neighbors. Having recently lost a beloved daugh- 
ter, he had recourse to ' spiritualism,' (abominable 
term !) and received many messages from what pur- 
ported to be his lost child, one or more of which in- 
sisted that the aforesaid whiskey-barrel must be 
expelled from his%premises, and never re-instated. 
So said, so done, greatly to the benefit of the neigh- 
borhood. Now, I feel confident that the Devil never 
sent nor dictated that message ; for, if he did, his 



MR. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 221 

character has been grossly belied, and his biography 
ought to be rewritten." 

Mr. Greeley thought the failures of the " mediums " 
more proof of spirits' operations than their success : 
for he says, '' A juggler can do nearly as well at one 
time as another ; but I have known the most eminent 
' mediums ' spend a long evenhig in trying to evoke 
the ' spiritual phenomena ' without a gleam of success. 
I have known tliis to occur when they were particu- 
larly anxious — and for obviously good reasons — to 
astound and convince those who were present and ex- 
pectant ; yet not even the faintest ' rap ' could they 
scare up. Had they been jugglers, they could not have 
failed so utterly, ignominiously." 

Mr. Greeley found he could spend his time much 
more profitably than in investigating this folly. Hence 
he said, " To sit for two dreary, mortal hours in a 
darkened room, in a mixed company, waiting for some 
one's disembodied grandfather or aunt to tip a table 
or rap on a door, is dull music at best ; but to sit in 
vain is disgusting." 

Just so, Horace : you talk like a sensible man about 
this disgusting business ; and my only wonder is that 
you did not keep clear of such tei-restrial nonsense at 
first. However, your conclusions are full of common 
sense ; which are these : — 

" 1. Those who discharge promptly and faithfully 

19* 



222 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

all their duties to those who ' still live ' in the flesh 
can have little time for poking and peering into the 
life beyond the grave. 

" 2. Those who claim, through the ^ mediums,' to be 
Shakspeare, Milton, Byron, &c., and try to prove it by 
writing poetry, invariably come to grief. I cannot 
recall a line of ' spiritual ' poetry that is not weak, if 
not execrable, save that of Rev. Thomas L. Harris, who 
is a poet still in the flesh. After his death, I predict 
that the poetry sent us as his will be much worse than 
he ever wrote while in the body. Even Tupper, ap- 
palling as is the prospect, will be dribbling worse 
rhymes upon us after death than even he perpetrated 
while on earth." 

Pretty good, Horace ; and " spiritualism," or " rap- 
pings," or "jugglery," or "mediums," or deteriorated 
sensualists and liberalists, or libertines, are welcome 
to all the good they can get out of the following, with 
which Mr. Greeley winds up his views of this delu- 
sion : — 

" 3. As a general rule, the so-called ' spiritual com- 
munications ' are vague, unreal, shadowy, trivial. 
They are not what we should expect our departed 
friends to say to us. I never could feel that the lost 
relative or friend who professed to be addressing me 
was actually present. I do not doubt that foolish, 
trifling people remain so (measurably) after they 



ME. GREELEY AND SPIRITUALISM. 223 

have passed the dark river. I perceive that trivial 
questions must necessarily invite trivial answers. But, 
after making all due allowance, I insist that the 
' spiritual ' literature of the day, in so far as it pur- 
ports to consist of communications or revelations from 
the future life, is more inane and trashy than it could 
be if the sages and heroes, the saints and poets, of by- 
gone days were really speaking to us through these 
pretended revelations. 

" 4. Not only is it true (as we should in any case 
presume) that nearly all attempts of the so-called 
' mediums ' to guide speculators as to events yet 
future have proved melancholy failures ; but it is de- 
monstrated that the so-called ' spirits ' are often igno- 
rant of events which have already transpired. They 
did not help fish up the broken Atlantic Cable, nor 
find Sir John Franklin, nor dispel the mystery which 
still shrouds the fate of the crew and passengers of the 
doomed steamship ' President ; ' and so of a thousand 
instances wherein their presumed knowledge might 
have been of use to us darkly-seeing mortals. All 
that we have learned of them has added little or 
nothing to our knowledge, unless it be in en- 
abling us to answer with more confidence that old 
momentous question, ' If a man die, shall he live 



again ? ' 



5. On the whole (thougli I say it with regret), it 



! 



224 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

seems to me that the great body of the ' spiritualists ' 
have not been rendered better men and women — 
better husbands, wives, parents, children — by their 
new faith. I think some have been improved by it ; 
while many who were previously good are good still, 
and some have morally deteriorated. I judge that 
laxer notions respecting marriage, divorce, chastity, 
and stern morality generally, have advanced in the 
wake of ' spiritualism ; ' and while I am fully aware 
that religious mania, so called, has usually a purely 
material origin, so that revivals have often been 
charged with making persons insane whose insanity 
took its hue from the topic of the hour, but owed its 
existence to purely physical causes, I still judge that 
the aggregate of both insanity and suicide has been 
increased by ' spiritualism.' 

" 6. I do not know that these ' communications ' 
made through ' mediums ' proceed from those wlio are 
said to be their authors, nor from the- spirits of the de- 
parted at all. Certain developments strongly indicate 
that they do; others that they do not. We know 
that they say they do ; which is evidence so far as it 
goes, and is not directly contradicted or rebutted. 
That some of them are the result of juggle, collusion, 
or trick, I am confident ; that others are not, I de- 
cidedly believe. The only certain conclusion in the 
premises to which my mind has been led is forcibly 



MR. GREELEY AKD SPIRITUALISM. 225 

set forth by Shakspeare in the words of the Danish 
prince : — 

' There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' 

" 7. I find my ' spiritual ' friends nowise less bigoted, 
less intolerant, than the devotees at other shrines. 
They do not allow me to see through my own eyes, but 
insist that I shall see through theirs. If my conclu- 
sion from certain data differs from theirs, they will not 
allow my stupidity to account for our difference, but 
insist on attributing it to hypocrisy, or some other 
form of rascality. I cannot reconcile this harsh judg- 
ment with their professions of liberality, their talk of 
philosophy ; but, if I speak at all, I must report what 
I see and hear.'^ 

Mr. Greeley, among other things said not to his 
credit, has been charged with being a " spiritualist.'* 
How any one could bring such a charge against him, 
with the above-made statements from his own pen, is 
more than I am able to comprehend ; and I fancy 
there would not be much dependence placed upon 
these " rappings " if everybody rapped them as he 
has. 



CHAPTER XIY. 

LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 

These Suits Numerous. — J. Fenimore Cooper's Character valued at Two 
Hundred Dollars. — His Nephew and himself the Lawyers. — Horace his 
own Lawyer. — Horace not allowed to plead his own Case and to have 
Counsel ; but Cooper is allowed to. — Injustice and Absurdity of the Law 
of Libel in the State of New York. — The Whig Editors only prosecuted. 
— Editors do not claim Immunity to Libels. — Mr. Greeley's Logic. — 
Base Fellows. — New- York Laws Worse than English. The Greater the 
Truth stated, the Greater the Libel. — Mr. Greeley did Much for the 
Press in this Case. — Wonderful Rapidity of Writing. — The Judge's 
Charge Worse than Cooper's Plea. — Mr. Greeley gives a most Humor- 
ous Turn to this Whole Libel-Business. — His Defence resulted in Good. 

ALMOST every editor of a daily newspaper has 
had a large experience in the items which are 
placed at the head of this chapter. They are a com- 
mon nuisance, and, though sometimes justifiable, 
generally most unjust and scandalous. Hence Mr. 
Greeley, in his " Recollections," well says, — 

'' Editorial life has many cares, sundry enjoyments, 
with certain annoyances ; and prominent among these 
last are libel-suits. I can hardly remember a time 
when I was absolutely exempt from these infestations. 

226 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 227 

In fact, as they seem to be a main reliance for support 
of certain attorneys destitute alil^ of character and 
law, I suppose they must be borne for an indefinite 
period. The fact that these suits are far more com- 
mon in our State than elsewhere cannot have escaped 
notice ; and I find the reason of that fact in a per- 
version of the law by our judges of thirty to fifty 
years ago. 

" The first notable instance of this perversion oc- 
curred in the trial of Root vs. King, at Delhi, about 
1826. Gen. Erastus Root was a leading Democrat 
through the earliest third of this century ; and was, in 
1824, a zealous supporter of William H. Crawford for 
president. As president of the Senate, he presided 
at the joint meeting of the two Houses wherein elect- 
ors of president were chosen ; when, to his and his 
friends' sore disappointment, a large number of 
Adams and but few Crawford men received the 
requisite majority, the friends of Adams and those 
of Clay having privately united on a common ticket. 
When the votes for this ticket began to be counted 
out, presaging a Crawford defeat, Gen. Root at- 
tempted to break up the joint meeting, and thus 
invalidate the election. For this and other such 
acts he was severely handled by ' The New- York 
American ; '' whose editor, Charles King, was there- 
upon sued by Root for libel ; and the case being tried 



228 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

at Delhi, where Root resided and was lord paramount, 
the jury, under the rulings of a Democratic judge, 
gave the plaintiff fourteen hundred dollars damages. 
It was a most unjust verdict, based on a perversion 
of the law, which, if sustained, left the press no 
substantial liberty to rebuke wrong-doing or chastise 
offenders ; and the perversion of justice thus effected 
naturally led to still further and worse aberrations. 

" Ten or a dozen years afterward, Mr. J. Fenimore 
Cooper returned from a long residence abroad, during 
which many of his novels had been written. A man 
of unquestioned talent, — almost genius, — he was 
aristocratic in feeling, and arrogant in bearing, alto- 
gether combining in his manners what a Yankee once 
characterized as ' winning ways to make people hate 
him.' Retiring to his paternal acres near Coopers- 
town, N.Y., he was soon involved in a difficulty with 
the neighboring villagers, who had long been accus- 
tomed, in their boating - excursions on the lake 
(Otsego), to land and make themselves at home for an 
hour or two on a long, narrow promontory or ' point ' 
that ran down from his grounds into the lake, and 
whom he had now dissuaded from so doing by legal 
force. The Whig newspaper of the village took up 
the case for the villagers ; urging that their extrusion 
from ' the point,' though legal, was churlish, and im- 
pelled by the spirit of the dog in the manger : where- 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 229 

upon Cooper sued the editor for libel, recovered a 
verdict, and collected it by taking the money — 
through a sheriff's officer — from the editor's trunk. 
By this time several Whig journalists had taken up 
the cudgels for the villagers and their brother-editor ; 
and as Mr. Cooper had recently published two caustic, 
uncomplimentary, self-complacent works on his coun- 
trymen's ways and manners, entitled ' Homeward 
Bound,' and ' Home as Found,' some of these casti- 
gations took the form of reviews of those works. One 
or more appeared in ' The Courier and Enquirer,' 
edited by James Watson Webb ; at least one other in 
' The Commercial Advertiser,' edited by William L. 
Stone ; while several racy paragraphs, unflattering to 
Mr. Cooper, spiced the editorial columns of ' The 
Albany Evening Journal,' and were doubtless from 
the pen of its founder and then editor, Mr. Thurlow 
Weed. Cooper sued them all ; bringing several 
actions to trial at Fonda, the new county-seat of Mont- 
gomery County. He had no luck against Col. 
Webb, because, presuming that gentleman moneyless, 
he prosecuted him criminally, and could never find a 
jury to send an editor to prison on his account. Col. 
Webb was defended in chief by Ambrose L. Jordan, 
afterwards attorney-general of the State, an able and 
zealous advocate, who threw his whole soul into his 
cases, and who did by no means stand on the defensive. 



230 . LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

" 111 one of his actions against Mr. Weed he was 
more fortunate. Weed had not given it proper atten- 
tion ; and, when the case was called for trial at Fonda, 
he was detained at home by sickness in his family, 
and no one appeared for him : so a verdict of four 
hundred dollars was entered up against him by 
default. He was on hand a few hours afterward, and 
tried to have the case re-opened ; but Cooper would 
not consent : so Weed had to pay the four hundred 
dollars and costs. Deeming himself aggrieved, he 
wrote a letter to ' The Tribune,' describing the 
whole performance ; and on that letter Cooper sued 
me as for another libel. 

" The first writ wherewith I was honored by the 
autlior of 'The Pioneers,' &c., cited me to answer at 
Ballston, Saratoga County, on the first Tuesday (I 
believe) in December, 1842 ; and I obeyed it to the 
letter. I employed no lawyers, not realizing that I 
needed any. In its turn, the case was called, and 
opened in due form by Richard Cooper (nephew 
of Fenimore) for the plaintiff. No witnesses were 
called ; for none were needed. I admitted the publi- 
cation, and accepted the responsibility thereof: so the 
questions to be tried were these : ' Was the plaintiff 
libelled by such publication ? If so, to what amount 
was he damaged ? ' When Richard had concluded, I 
said all that I deemed necessary for the defence ; and 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 231 

then Fenimore summed up his own cause in a longer 
and rather stronger speech than Richard's, and the 
case was- closed. So far, I felt quite at my ease : but 
now the presiding judge (Willard) rose, and made a 
harder, more elaborate, and disengenuous speech 
against me than either Richard or Fenimore had 
done ; making three against one, which I did not 
think quite fair. He absolutely bullied the jury on 
the presumption that they were inclined to give a 
verdict for the defendant, which he told them they 
were nowise at liberty to do. I had never till that 
day seen one of them, and had never sought to effect 
any intimacy or understanding with them : so I must 
say that the judge's charge seemed to me as unfair as 
possible. The jury retired at its close, and, on ballot- 
ing, seven of them voted to make me pay a hundred 
dollars, two voted for five hundred dollars, one for 
ten hundred dollars, and two for nothing at all, or 
very nearly so. They soon agreed to call it two 
hundred dollars, and make it their verdict ; which 
they did. When all the costs were paid, I was just 
three hundred dollars out of pocket by that lawsuit. 
I have done better and worse in other cases ; but 
having been most ably and successfully defended in 
several, maugre the proverb that ' He who pleads his 
own cause has a fool for a client,' I am satisfied, that 
could I have found time, in every case wherein I was 



232 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

sued for libel, to attend in person, and simply, briefly- 
state the material facts to the jury, I should have had 
less to pay than I have done. Tliere is always danger 
that the real merits of your case will be buried out 
of sight under heaps of legal rubbish. But it is not 
possible for a business-man to spend his whole life in 
court-rooms, waiting for his case to be called ; and^ 
have often been sued in distant counties, where I 
could scarcely attend at all. 

" I left Ballston in a sleigh directly upon the render- 
ing of the verdict ; caught a steamboat, I think, at 
Troy ; and was at my desk in good season next morn- 
ing : so that, by eleven, p.m., I liad written out and 
read in proof, besides other matter, my report of the 
trial, which filled eleven columns of the next morn- 
ing's ' Tribune.' I think that was the best single day's 
work I ever did. I intended that the report should 
be good-natured, perhaps even humorous ; and some 
thought I succeeded. Bat Fenimore seems not to 
have concurred in that opinion ; for he sued me 
upon the report as a new libel, or rather as several 
libels. I was defended against this new suit by Hons. 
William H. Seward and A. B. Conger, so cleverly, that 
though there were hearings on demurrer, and various 
expensive interlocutory proceedings, the case never 
came to trial. Indeed, the legislature had meantime 
overborne some of the more irrational rulings of our 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 233 

judges; while our judiciary itself had undergone 
important changes through the political revolution in 
our State, and the influence of our Constitution of 
1846 : so that the press of New York now enjoys a 
freedom which it did not in the last generation. 

" I say, the press ; yet only the journals of one 
party were judicially muzzled. Rather more than 
forty years ago, Mr. Weed, then living at Rochester, 
was positively and generally charged through the 
Democratic journals with having shaved off or pulled 
out the whiskers of a dead man in order to make 
the body pass for that of the long-missing, never- 
recovered William Morgan, of anti-Masonic fame. 
The charge was an utterly groundless calumny, 
having barely a shred of badinage to palliate its 
utterance. Mr. Weed sued two or three of his de- 
famers ; but the courts were in the hands of his 
political adversaries, and he could never succeed in 
bringing his cases to trial. Finally, after they had 
been kicked and cuffed about for ten or a dozen years, 
they were kicked out, as too ancient and fish-like to 
receive attention. 

" This was, probably, the best disposition for him 
that could have been made of them. If he had tried 
them, and recovered nominal verdicts, his enemies 
would have shouted over those verdicts as virtually 
establishing the truth of their charges ; while, if he 

20* 



234 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

had been awarded exemplary damages, these would 
have been cited as measuring the damages to be given 
against hhn. 

" This consideration was forcibly brought home to 
me when, years afterward, having been outrageously 
libelled with regard to a sum of a thousand dollars, 
which it was broadly intimated that a railroad or 
canal company in Iowa had given me for services 
rendered, or to be rendered, I ordered suits commenced 
against two of the most reckless libellers. But, when 
time had been allowed for reflection, I perceived that 
I could afford neither to lose nor to win these suits ; 
that such verdicts as I ought to recover would be cited 
as measuring the damages that I ought to pay in all 
future libel-suits brought against me : so I gladly 
accepted such retractions as my libellers saw fit to 
make, and discontinued my suits. Henceforth, that 
man must very badly want to be sued who provokes 
me to sue him for libel." 

Mr. Greeley further adds, — 

" I have often heard it asserted from the bench that 
editors claim impunity to libel ; which is not the 
truth. What I claim and insist on is just this : That 
the editor shall be protected by the nature and exigencies 
of his calling to the same extent^ and in the same degree, 
that other men are protected by the exigencies, the require- 
ments, of THEIR callings or positions respectively . 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 235 

" For instance : A judge on the bench, a lawyer at 
the bar, may libel atrociously, and, I hold, may be 
fairly held responsible for such libel ; but the law will 
not presume him a libeller from the mere fact that he 
speaks disparagingly of some person or persons. A 
householder applied to for the character of his late 
servant may respond : ' I turned him off because I 
found him an eye-servant, a drunkard, and a thief: ' 
yet the law will presume no malice not specifically 
proven ; because it avers, that, in giving his ex-servant's 
character, that householder was acting in the line of 
his duty. Had he posted up those precise words in a 
public place, the law would have presumed malice, 
because no duty required such posting. 

" Now, let us apply the principle above enunciated 
to the actual case in hand. Jefferson Jones posts up 
in a bar-room, livery-stable, or on the town-pump, these 
words : ' Clifford Nokes was last night caught stealing 
a hog, and was committed by Justice Smith to await 
indictment and trial.' The law will presume that 
posting malicious, and will deal harshly with Jones if 
he should fail to prove it literally true. And why ? 
Clearly because no duty required him to make any 
such proclamation of his neighbor's alleged frailty ; 
because of the fair natural presumption that he was 
moved so to post by hate or malevolence. But that 
same paragraph might appear in the columns of any 



236 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 

journal that habitually printed police intelligence, 
without justifying or rendering plausible a kindred 
presumption. It might, indeed, be proved that the 
editor had inserted the item with malicious intent to 
injure Nokes ; and then I say, ' Punish the libeller 
to the extent of the law.' But I protest against 
presuming an editor a libeller, because in the routine 
of his vocation, the line of his duty, he prints informa- 
tion which may prove inaccurate or wholly erroneous, 
without fairly exposing him to the presumption that 
he was impelled to utter it by a malevolent spirit, a 
purpose to injure or degrade. Am I understood ? 

" Twice in the course of my thirty odd years of 
editorship I have encountered human beings base 
enough to require me to correct a damaging statement, 
and, after I had done so to the extent of their desire, 
to sue me upon that retracted statement as a libel ! 
I think this proves more than the depravity of the 
persons implicated ; that it indicates a glaring defect 
in the law or the ruling under which such a manoeuvre 
is possible. If the law were honest, or merely decent, 
it would refuse to be made an accomplice of such 
villany." 

The matter alleged to be libellous was printed in 
" The Tribune," Nov. 17, 1841. The trial was held 
at Saratoga. Mr. Greeley defended himself, and gives 
the following account of the trial : — 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 237 

" The responsible editor of ' Tlie Tribune ' returned 
yesterday morning from a week's journey to and so- 
journ in the county of Saratoga ; having been thereto 
urgently persuaded by a supreme-court writ, requiring 
him to answer to the declaration of Mr. J. Feuimore 
Cooper in an action for libel. 

" This suit was originally to have been tried at the 
May circuit at Ballston ; but neither Fenimore (who 
was then engaged in the Coopering of Col. Stone of 
' The Commercial ' ) nor we had time to attend to it : 
so it went over to this term, which opened at Ballston 
Spa on Monday, Dec. 5. We arrived on the ground 
at eleven o'clock of that day, and found the plaintiff 
and his lawyers ready for us, our case No. 10 on the 
calendar, and of course a good prospect of an early 
trial. But an important case involving water-rights 
came in ahead of us (No. 8), taking two days ; and it 
was half-past ten, a.m., of Friday, before ours was 
reached, — very fortunately for us, as we had no law- 
yer, had never talked over the case with one, or made 
any preparation whatever, save in thought; and had 
not even found time to read the papers pertaining to 
it till we arrived at Ballston. 

" The delay in reaching the case gave us time for all ; 
and that we did not employ lawyers to aid in our con- 
duct or defence proceeded from no want of confidence 
in or deference to the many eminent members of the 



238 LIFE OF HOBACE GREELEY. 

bar there in attendance besides Mr. Cooper's three 
able counsel, but simply from the fact that we wished 
to present to the court some considerations which we 
thought had been overlooked or overborne in the re- 
cent trials of the press for libel before our supreme 
and circuit courts, and whicli, since they appealed 
more directly and forcibly to the experience of editors 
than of lawyers, we presumed an ordinary editor 
might present as plainly and fully as an able lawyer. 
We wished to place before the court and the country 
those views wliich we understand the press to maintain 
with us of its own position, duties, responsibilities, and 
rights, as affected by the practical construction given 
of late years in this State to the law of libel, and its 
application to editors and journals. Understanding 
that we could not appear both in person and by 
counsel, we chose the former ; though, on trial, we 
found our opponent was permitted to do what we sup- 
posed we could not. So much by way of explanation 
to the many able and worthy lawyers in attendance on 
the circuit, from whom we received every kindness ; 
who would doubtless have aided us most cheerfully if 
we had required it, and would have conducted our 
case far more skilfully than we cither expected or 
cared to do. We had not appeared there to be saved 
from a verdict by any nice technicality or legal subtlety. 
" The case was opened to the court and jury by Rich- 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 239 

ard Cooper, nephew and attorney of the plaintiff, in a 
speech of decided pertinence and force. Mr. Richard 
Cooper has had much experience in this class of cases, 
and is a young man of considerable talent. His man- 
ner is the only fault about him, being too elaborate 
and pompous, and his diction too bombastic to produce 
the best effect on an unsophisticated auditory. If he 
will only contrive to correct this, he will yet make a 
figure at the bar ; or rather he will make less figure, 
and do more execution. The force of his speech was 
marred by Fenimore's continually interrupting to dic- 
tate and suggest to him ideas, when he would have 
done much better if left alone. For instance : Feni- 
more instructed him to say that our letter from Fonda, 
above recited, purported to be from the ' correspond- 
ent of " The Tribune," ' and thence to draw and press 
on the jury the inference that the letter was written 
by some of our own corps whom we had sent to 
Fonda to report these trials. This inference we were 
obliged to repel in our reply, by showing that the 
article plainly read ' Correspondence of " The Trib- 
une," ' just as when a fire, a storm, or some other 
notable event, occurs in any part of the country or 
world, and a friend who happens to be there sits 
down and despatches us a letter by the first mail to 
give us early advices, though he has no connection 
with us but by subscription and good-will, and perhaps 
never wrote a line to us in his life till now. 



240 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

" The next step in Mr. Richard Cooper's opening, we 
had, to the declaration against us, pleaded the general 
issue, — that is, not guilty of libelling Mr. Cooper ; at 
the same time fully admitting that we had published 
all that he called our libels on him, and desiring to 
put in issue only the fact of their being or not being 
libels, and have tlie verdict turn on that issue. But 
Mr. Cooper told the jury (and we found, to our cost, 
that this was New-York supreme and circuit court 
law), that, by pleading not guilty^ we had legally admit- 
ted ourselves to be guilty ; that all that was necessary 
for the plaintiff under that plea was to put in our 
admission of publication, and then the jury had 
nothing to do but to assess the plaintiff's damages 
under the direction of the court. In short, we were 
made to understand that there was no way under 
heaven — we beg pardon ; under New- York supreme- 
court law — in which the editor of a newspaper 
could plead, to an action for libel, that the matter 
charged upon him as libellous was not in its nature or 
intent a libel, but simply a statement, according to 
the best of his knowledge and belief, of some noto- 
rious and every way public transaction, or his own 
honest comments thereon, and ask the jury to decide 
whether the plaintiff's averment or his answers 
thereto be the truth I To illustrate the beauties of 
* the perfection of human reason,' always intending 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 241 

New- York circuit and supreme court reason, on this 
subject, and to show the perfect soundness and per- 
tinence of Mr. Cooper's logic according to the decis- 
ions of these courts, we will give an example. 

" Our police-reporter, say, this evening, shall bring 
in on his chronicle of daily occurrences the follow- 
ing : — , 

" ' A hatchet-faced chap with mouse-colored whis- 
kers, who gave the name of John Smith, was brought 
in by a watchman who found him lying drunk in the 
gutter. After a suitable admonition from the justice, 
and on payment of the usual fine, he was discharged.' 

" Now, our reporter, who, no more than we, ever 
before heard of this John Smith, is only ambitious to 
do his duty correctly and thoroughly, to make his 
description accurate and graphic, and perhaps to pro- 
tect better men, who rejoice in the cognomen of John 
Smith, from being confounded with this one in the 
popular rumor of his misadventure. If the paragraph 
should come under our notice, we should probably 
strike it out altogether, as relating to a subject of no 
public moment, and likely to crowd out better matter. 
But we do not see it ; and in it goes. Well, John 
Smith, who 'acknowledges the corn' as to being 
accidentally drunk and getting into a watch-house, is 
not willing to rest under the imputation of being 
' hatchet-faced ' and having ' mouse-colored whiskers,' 

21 



242 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

retains Mr. Richard Cooper, — for he could not do bet- 
ter, — and commences an action for libel against us. 
We take the best legal advice, and are told that we 
must demur to the declaration ; that is, go before a 
court without a jury, where no facts can be shown, 
and maintain tliat the matter charged as uttered by 
us is not libellous. But Mr. Richard Cooper meets us 
there, and says justly, ' How is the court to decide, 
without evidence, that this matter is not libellous ? If 
it was written and inserted for the express purpose of 
ridiculing and bringing into contempt my client, it 
clearly is libellous. And then as to damages : my 
client is neither rich nor a great man ; but his char- 
acter in his own circle is both dear and valuable to 
him. We shall be able to show on trial that he was 
on the point of contracting marriage with the daugh- 
ter of the keeper of the most fashionable and lucra- 
tive oyster-cellar in Orange Street, whose nerves were 
so shocked at the idea of her intended having a 
" hatchet-face and mouse-colored whiskers," that she 
fainted outright on reading the paragraph (copied 
from your paper into the next day's " Sun "), and was 
not brought to until a whole bucket of oysters which 
she had just opened had been poured over her in a 
hurried mistake for water. Since then, she has 
frequent relapses and shuddering, especially when my 
client's name is mentioned, and utterly refuses to see 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 243 

or speak to him. The match is dead broke ; and my 
client loses thereby a capital home, where victuals 
are more plentiful and the supply more steady than it 
has been his fortune to find them for the last year or 
two. He loses with all this a prospective interest in 
the concern ; and is left utterly without business, or 
means of support, except this suit. Besides, how can 
you tell, in the absence of all testimony, that the 
editor was not paid to insert this villanous description 
of my client by some envious rival for the affections 
of the oyster-maid, who calculates both to gratify his 
spite and advance his lately hopeless wooing ? In 
that case it certainly is a libel. We affirm this to be 
the case ; and you are bound to presume that it is. 
The demurrer must be overruled.' And so it must be. 
No judge could decide otherwise. 

" Now we are thrown back upon a dilemma. We 
may plead justification^ in which case we admit that 
our 'publication was, on its face, a libel ; and now woe 
to us if we cannot prove Mr. Cooper's client's face as 
sharp, and his whiskers of the precise color, as stated ! 
A shade more or less ruins us. For, be it known, by 
attempting a justification we liave not merely admitted 
our offence to be a Ubel, but our plea is an aggravation 
of the libel, and entitles the plaintiff to recover higher 
and more exemplary damages. We have just one 
chance more, — to plead the general issu£ ; to wit, that 



244 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

we did not libel the said John Smith, and go into court 
prepared to show that we had no malice toward or 
intent to injure Mr. Smith, never heard of him before, 
and have done all we know how to make him repara- 
tion ; in short, that we have done and intended 
nothing which brings us fairly within the iron grasp 
of the law of libel. But here again, while trying our 
best to get in somehow a plea of not guilty, we have 
actually pleaded guilty (so says the supreme-court 
law of New York). Our admitted publication (no 
matter of what) concerning John Smith proves irre- 
sistibly that we have libelled him. We are not entitled 
in any way whatever to go to the jury with evidence 
tending to show that our publication is not a libel, 
or, in overthrow of the legal presumption of malice, to 
show that there actually was none. All that we possi- 
bly can offer must be taken into account merely in 
mitigation of damages. Our hide is on the fence, you 
see, anyhow. 

" But to return to Richard's argument at Ballston. 
He put very strongly against us the fact, that our 
Fonda correspondent (see declaration above) consid- 
ered Fenimore's verdict there a meagre one. ' Gen- 
tlemen of the jury,' said he, ' see how these editors 
rejoice and exult when they get off with so light a 
verdict as four hundred dollars ! They consider it a 
triumph over the law and the defendant. They don't 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 245 

consider that amount any thing. If you mean to 
vindicate the laws and the character of my client, you 
see, you must give much more than this.' This was 
a good point, but not quite fair. The exultation over 
the ' meagre verdict ' was expressly in view of the fact 
that the cause was undefended ; that Fenimore and 
his counsel had it all their own way, — evidence, ar- 
gument, charge, and all. Still Richard had a good 
chance here to appeal for a large verdict ; and he did 
it well. 

" On one other point Richard talked more like a 
cheap lawyer, and less like a — like what we had 
expected of him, than through the general course of 
his argument. In his pleadings he had set forth 
Horace Greeley and Thomas McElrath as editors and 
proprietors of ' The Tribune ; ' and we readily enough 
admitted whatever he chose to assert about us, except 
the essential thing in dispute between us. Well, on 
the strength of this he puts it to the court and jury 
that Thomas McElrath is one of the editors of ' The 
Tribune,' and that he, being (having been) a lawyer, 
would have been in court to defend this suit if there 
was any valid defence to be made. This, of course, 
went very hard against us ; and it was to no purpose 
that we informed him that Thomas McElrath, though 
legally implicated in it, had nothing to do practically 
with this matter (all which he knew very well long 

21* 



246 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

before), and that the other defendant is the man who 
does whatever libelling is done in ' The Tribune,' and 
holds himself eveywhere responsible for it. We 
presume there is not much doubt even so far off as 
Cooperstown as to who edits ' The Tribune,' and who 
wrote the editorial about the Fonda business (in point 
of fact, the real and palpable defendant in this suit 
never conversed with his partner a quarter of an hour 
altogether about this subject, considering it entirely 
his own job ; and the plaintiff himself, in conversation 
with Mr. McElrath, in the presence of his attorney^ had 
fully exonerated Mr. McElrath from any thing more 
than legal liability). But Richard was on his legs as a 
lawyer : he pointed to the seal on his bond, and 
therefore insisted that Thomas McElrath was act and 
part in the alleged libel, not only legally, but actually, 
and would have been present to respond to it if he had 
deemed it susceptible of defence ! As a lawyer, we 
suppose this was right ; but, as an editor and a man, 
we could not have done it." 

At the conclusion of this story, Mr. Greeley addressed 
the jury in the following speech : " ' Should you find, 
gentlemen,'" says Mr. Greeley, " ' that I had no right 
to express an opinion as to the honor and magnanimity 
of Mr. Cooper in pushing his case to a trial as related, 
you will, of course, compel me to pay whatever damage 
has been done to his character by such expression, 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 247 

followed and accompanied by his own statement of the 
whole matter. I will not predict your estimate, gen- 
tlemen ; but I may express my profound conviction 
that no opinion which Mr. Cooper might choose to 
express of any act of my life, no construction he 
could put upon my conduct or motives, could possibly 
damage me to an extent which would entitle or incline 
me to ask damages at your hands. 

'' ' But, gentlemen, you are bound to consider, you 
cannot refuse to consider, that, if you condemn me to 
pay any sum whatever for this expression of my opin- 
ion .on his conduct, you thereby seal your own lips, 
with those of your neighbors and countrymen, against 
any such expression in this or any other case : you will 
no longer have a right to censure the rich man who 
harasses his poor neighbor with vexatious lawsuits 
merely to oppress and ruin him, but will be liable by 
your own verdict to prosecution and damages whenever 
you shall feel constrained to condemn what appears to 
you injustice, oppression, or littleness, no matter how 
flagrant the case may be. 

" ' Gentlemen of the jury, my character, my reputa- 
tion, are in your hands. I think I may say that I 
commit them to your keeping untarnished : I will not 
doubt that you will return them to me unsullied. 
I ask of you no mercy, but justice. I have not sought 
this issue ; but neither have I feared nor shunned it. 



248 ' LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

Should you render the verdict against me, I shall de- 
plore far more than any pecuniary consequence the 
stigma of libeller which your verdict would tend to cast 
upon me, — an imputation which I was never, till now, 
called to repel before a jury of my countrymen. But, 
gentlemen, feeling no consciousness of deserving such 
a stigma ; feeling at this moment, as ever, a profound 
conviction that I do not deserve it, — I shall yet be con- 
soled by the reflection that many nobler and worthier 
than I have suffered far more than any judgment here 
could inflict on me for the rights of free speech 
and opinion, — the right of rebuking oppression and 
meanness in the language of manly sincerity and 
honest feeling. By their example may I still be up- 
held and strengthened ! Gentlemen, I fearlessly await 
your decision.' 

" Mr. J. Fenimore Cooper summed up in person 
the cause for the prosecution. He commenced by 
giving at length the reasons which had induced him to 
bring this suit to Saratoga. The last and only one 
that made any impression on our mind was this, — that 
he had heard a great deal of good of the people of 
Saratoga, and wished to form a better acquaintance 
with them. (Of course, this desire was very flattering : 
but we hope the Saratogans won't feel too proud to 
speak to common folks hereafter ; for we want liberty 
to go there again next summer.) 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 249 

" Mr. Cooper now walked into the public press and 
its alleged abuses, arrogant pretensions, its interfer- 
ence in this case, probable motives, &g. ; but the 
public are already aware of his sentiments respecting 
the press, and would not thank us to recapitulate 
them. His stories of editors publishing truth and 
falsehood with equal relish may have foundation in 
individual cases, but certainly none in general practice. 
No class of men spend a tenth part so much time or 
money in endeavoring to procure the earliest and best 
information from all quarters as it is their duty to do. 
Occasionally an erroneous or utterly false statement 
gets into print, and is copied ; for editors cannot 
intuitively separate all truth from falsehood : but 
the evil arises mainly from the circumstance that 
others than editors are often the spectators of events 
demanding publicity ; since we cannot tell where the 
next man is to be killed, or the next storm will rage, or 
the next important cause be tried. If we had the power 
of prophecy, it would then be time to invent some 
steam-lightning balloon, and have a reporter ready on 
the spot the moment before any notable event should 
occur. This would do it ; but now we luckless editors 
must too often depend on the observation and reports 
of those who are less observant, less careful, possibly 
in some cases less sagacious, than those of our own 
tribe. Our limitations are not unlike those of Mr. 



250 LEFB OF HORACE GREELEY. 

Weller, juii., as stated while under cross-examination 
in tlie case of Bardell vs. Pickwick ; — 

" 'Yes, I have eyes,' replied Sam ; ' and that's just 
it. If they was a pair of patent double million mag- 
nifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power, p'raps I might 
be able to see through a flight of stairs and a deal 
door; but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's 
limited.' 

" Fenimore proceeded to consider our defence, 
which he used up in five minutes by pronouncing it 
no defence at all. It had nothing to do with the mat- 
ter in issue whatever ; and we must be very green if 
we meant to be serious in offering it. (We were 
rather green in supreme-court libel law, that's a 
fact ; but we were put to school soon after, and have 
already run up quite a little bill for tuition, which is 
one sign of progress.) His Honor the judge would tell 
the jury that our law was no law whatever, or had 
nothing to do with this case. (So he did: Cooper 
v^as right here.) In short, our speech could not have 
been meant to apply to this case, but was probably the . 
scrapings of our editorial closet, — mere odds and 
ends, — what the editors call ' Balaam.' Here fol- 
lowed an historical digression concerning what editors 
call ' Balaam,' which, as it was intended to illustrate 
the irrelevancy of our whole argument, we thought 
very pertinent. It wound up with what was meant 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 251 

for a joke about Balaam and his ass, wliicli, of course, 
was a good thing; but its point wholly, escaped us, 
and we believe the auditors were equally unfortunate. 
However, the wag himself appreciated and enjoyed it. 

" There were several other jokes (we suppose they 
were) uttered in the course of this lively speech ; but 
we didn't get into their merits, probably not being in 
the best humor for joking. But one we remembered 
because it was really good, and came down to our com- 
prehension. Fenimore was replying to our remarks 
about the 'handsome Mr. Effingham,' when he observed, 
that, if we should sue him for libel in pronouncing us 
not handsome, he should not plead the general issue, 
but justify. That was a neat hit, and well planted. 
We can tell him, however, that, if the court should rule 
as hard against him as it does against editors when 
they undertake to justify, he would find it difficult to 
get in the testimony to establish a matter even so 
plain as our plainness. 

" Personally, Fenimore treated us pretty well on 
this trial : let us thank him for that, and so much 
the more that he did it quite at the expense of 
his consistency and his logic. For, after stating 
plumply that he considered us the best of the whole 
press-gang he had been fighting with, he yet went on 
to argue that all we had done and attempted with the 
intent of rendering him strict justice had been in 



252 LIFE OF HOBACE GREELEY. 

aggravation of our original trespass ! Yes, there he 
stood, saying one moment we were, on the whole, 
rather a clever fellow, and every other arguing that 
we had done nothing but to injure him wantonly and 
maliciously at first, and then all in our power to 
aggravate that injury! (What a set the rest of us 
must be !) 

" And here is where he hit us hard for the first time. 
He had talked over an hour, without gaining, as we 
could perceive, an inch of ground. When his compli- 
ment was put in, we supposed he was going on to say 
he was satisfied with our explanation of the matter, 
and our intentions to do him justice, and would 
now throw up the case : but, instead of this, he 
took a sheer the other way, and came down upon us 
with the assertion that our publishing his statement 
of the Fonda business with our comments was an 
aggravation of our original ofi'ence ; was, in eflfect, 
adding insult to injury. 

" There was a little point made by the prosecution 
which seemed to us too little. Our Fonda letter had 
averred that Cooper had three libel-suits coming off 
there at that circuit, — two against Webb, one against 
Weed. Richard and Fenimore argued that this was a 
lie : the one against Weed was ail. The nicety of 
the distinction here taken will be appreciated when we 
explain that the suits against Webb were indictments 
for libels on J. Fenimore Cooper. 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 253 

" We supposed that Feiiimore would pile up the law 
against us, but were disappointed. He merely cited 
the last case decided against an editor by the supreme 
court of this State. Of course, it was very fierce 
against editors and their libels, but did not strike us 
as at all meeting the issue we had raised, or covering 
the grounds on wliich this case ought to have been 
decided. 

" Fenimore closed very eflfectively with an appeal 
for his character, and a picture of the sufferings of his 
wife and family, — his grown-up daughters often suf- 
fused in tears by these attacks on their father. Some 
said this was mawkish ; but we consider it good, 
and think it told. We have a different theory as to 
what the girls were crying for; but we won't state it, 
lest another dose of supreme-court law be adminis- 
tered to us. Q Not any more at present, I thank ye.') 

" Fenimore closed something before two o'clock, 
having spoken over an hour and a half. If he had not 
wasted so much time in promising to make but a short 
speech and to close directly, he could have got through 
considerably sooner. Then lie did wrong to Richard by 
continually recurring to and making fulsome eulogiums 
on the argument of ' my learned kinsman.' Richard 
had made a good speech and an effective one, — no 
mistake about it, — and Fenimore must mar it, first by 
needless, provoking interruptions, and then by praises, 



254 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

which, though deserved, were horribly out of place and 
out of taste. Fenimore, my friend, you and I had 
better abandon the bar : we are not likely either of us 
to cut much of a figure there. Let us quit before we 
make ourselves ridiculous. 

" His Honor Judge Willard occupied a brief half- 
hour in charging the jury. We could not decently 
appear occupied in taking, down this charge ; and no 
one else did it : so we must speak of it with great cir- 
cumspection. That he would go dead against us on 
the law of the case we knew right well from his decis- 
ions and charges on similar trials before. 

" Not having his law-points before us, we shall not 
venture to speak of them. Suffice it to say, that 
they were New- York supreme and circuit court law, 
— no better and no worse than he has measured off to 
several editorial culprits before us. They are the set- 
tled maxims of the supreme court of this State in 
regard to the law of libel as applied to editors and 
newspapers ; and we must have been a goose to expect 
any better than had been served out to our betters. 
The judge was hardly, if at all, at liberty to know or 
tolerate any other. 

" But we have filled our paper, and must close. 
The judge charged very hard against us on the facts 
of the case, as calling for a pretty sizable verdict : 
our legal guilt had, of course, been settled long before 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 255 

in the supreme court. When the charge commenced, 
we would not have given Fenimore the first red cent 
for his verdict ; when it closed, we understood that 
we were booked to suffer some. If the jury had 
returned a verdict in our favor, the judge must have 
been constrained by his charge to set it aside as con- 
trary to law. 

" The jury retired about half-past two, and the rest 
of us went to dinner. The jury were hungry too, 
and did not stay out long. On ccfmpariug notes, 
there were seven of them for a verdict of a hundred 
dollars, tivo for two hundred dollars, and three for 
five hundred dollars. They added these sums up 
(total twenty-six hundred dollars), divided by twelve ; 
and the dividend was a little over two hundred dol- 
lars : so they called it two hundred dollars damages, 
and six cents costs, which, of course, carries full costs 
against us. We went back from, dinner ; took the 
verdict in all meekness ; took a sleigh, and struck a 
bee-line for New York. 

" Thus for ' The Tribune ' the rub-a-dub is over, 
the adze, we trust, laid aside, the staves all in their 
places, the hoops tightly driven, and the heading not 
particularly out of order. Nothing remains but to 
pay piper or cooper, or whatever ; and that shall be 
promptly attended to. 

" Yes, Fenimore shall have his two hundred dollars. 



256 LIFE OF HORACE GKEELEY. 

To be sure, we don't exactly see how we came to owe 
him that sum ; but he has won it, and shall be paid. 
* The court awards it, and the law doth give it.' We 
should like to meet him, and have a social chat over 
the whole business, now it is over. There has been a 
good deal of fun in it, come to look back ; and, if he 
has as little ill-will toward us as we bear to him, there 
shall never be another hard thought between us. 
We don't blame him a bit for the whole matter : he 
thought we injured him, sued us, and got his pay. 
Since the jury have cut down his little bill from 
three thousand to two iiundred dollars, we won't 
higgle a bit about the balance, but pay it on sight. 
In fact, we rather like the idea of being so munificent 
a patron (for our means) of American literature ; 
and we are glad to do any thing for one of the most 
creditable (of old) of our authors, who are now 
generally reduced to any shift for a living by that 
grand national rascality and greater folly, the denial 
of international copyright. ' My pensive public,' 
don't flatter yourself that we are to be rendered 
mealy-mouthed toward you by our buffeting. We 
shall put it to your iniquities just as straight as a 
loon's leg, calling a spade a spade, and not an oblong 
garden implement, until the judicial construction of 
the law of libel shall take another hitch, and its 
penalties be invoked to shield communities 'as well as 



LIBELS AND LIBEL-SUITS. 257 

individuals from censure for their transgressions. 
Till then, keep a bright lookout ! 

" And Richard, too, shall have his share of ' the 
spoils of victory.' He has earned them fairly, and, 
in the main, like a gentleman, making us no needless 
trouble, and, we presume, no needless expense. All 
was fair and above-board, save some little specks in 
his opening of the case, which we noticed some hours 
ago, and have long since forgiven. For the rest, we 
rather like what we have seen of him ; and if any- 
body has any law-business in Otsego, or any libel-suits 
to prosecute anywhere, we heartily recommend Rich- 
ard to do the work, warranting the client to be hand- 
somely taken in and done for throughout. (There's 
a puff, now, a man may be proud of. We don't give 
such every day out of pure kindness. It was Feni- 
more, we believe, that said on the trial, that our 
word went a great way in this country.) Can we say 
a good word for you, gallant foeman ? We'll praise 
any thing of yours we have read except ' The Moni- 
kins.' 

" But sadder thoughts rush in on us in closing. 
Our case is well enough, or of no moment ; but we 
cannot resist the conviction, that by the result of these 
Cooper libel-suits, and by the judicial constructions 
which produce that result, the liberty of the press, 
its proper influence and respectability, its power to 

22* 



258 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

rebuke wrong and to exert a salutary influence upon 
the public morals, is fearfully impaired. We do not 
see how any paper can exist, and^ speak and act 
worthily and usefully, in this State, without subject- 
ing itself daily to innumerable unjust and crushing 
prosecutions and indictments for libel. Even if 
juries could have nerves of iron to say and do what 
they really think right between man and man, the 
costs of such prosecution would ruin any journal. 
But the liberty of the press has often been compelled 
to appeal from the bench to the people. It will do so 
now, and, we will not doubt, with success. Let not, 
then, the wrong-doer who is cunning enough to keep 
the blind side of the law, the swindling banker who 
has spirited away the means of the widow and orphan, 
the libertine who has dragged a fresh victim to his 
lair, imagine that they are permanently shielded, by 
this misapplication of the law of libel, from fearless 
exposure to public scrutiny and indignation by the 
eagle gaze of an unfettered press. Clouds and 
darkness may for the moment rest upon it ; but they 
cannot, in the nature of things, endure. In the very 
gloom of its present humiliation we read the predic- 
tion of its speedy and certain restoration to its rights 
and its true dignity, — to a sphere, not of legal suf- 
ferance merely, but of admitted usefulness and 
honor." 



LIBELS AND LLBEL-STJITS. 259 

It must be confessed Mr. Greeley handled this 
whole affair of libel-suits in an able and admirable 
way, and in such manner as resulted in good to the 
press generally, and in honor to the great State of 
New York ; for, since that period, the press has been 
less trammelled, and the State has reviewed and 
amended her uncouth, senseless, and contradictory 
code, and adopted one more in accordance with our 
republican institutions and common sense. 



CHAPTER XY. 

MR. GREELEY'S VISITS TO EUROPE. 

His First Visit in 1851. — At the World's Fair of that Year, he is made Chair- 
man of one of the Juries. — He delivers the Address to the Constructor of 
the Palace. — His Second Visit to the Old World. — He is arrested in 
Paris for Debt, and imprisoned. 

nv /TR. GREELEY'S first visit abroad was made in 
^'^-'~- the year 1851. He was appointed one of the 
commissioners to the World's Fair this year in London. 
In his " Recollections," he gives the following account 
of this visit : — 

" Having left New York in the stanch American 
steamship ' Baltic,' Capt. J. J. Comstock, on the 11th 
of April, when a cold north-easter had just set in, we 
took it with us across the Atlantic, rarely blessed 
with a brief glimpse of the watery sun during our 
rough passage of twelve days and some hours, encoun- 
tering a severe gale on our first night out, and another 
as we reached soundings on the Irish coast ; and, being 
surfeited with rain and head-winds during our entire 

260 



MB. Greeley's visits to Europe. 261 

passage, I was sick unto death's door for most of the 
time, eating by an effort when I ate at all, and as 
thoroughly miserable as I knew how to be : so that 
the dirty, grimy little tug that at last approached to 
take us ashore at Liverpool seemed to me, though by 
no means white-winged, an angel of deliverance ; and 
my first meal on solid, well-behaving earth will long be 
remembered with gratitude to the friends who provided 
and shared it. I have since repeatedly braved the 
perils and miseries of the raging main, and have never 
found the latter so intolerable as on that first voyage ; 
yet the ocean and I remain but distant, unloving 
acquaintances, with no prospect of ever becoming 
friends. 

" Reaching London just before the Exhibition opened, 
I was accorded by the partiality of my countrymen 
who had preceded me (somewhat strengthened, I 
believe, by their jealousy of each other) the position 
of chairman of one of the juries ; each of the 
countries largely represented in the Exhibition being 
allowed one chairman. My department (Class X.) 
included about three thousand lots (not merely three 
thousand articles), and was entitled, I believe, ^ Hard- 
ware ; ' but it embraced not only metals, but all man- 
ner of devices for generating or economizing gas, 
for eliminating or diffusing heat, &c. The duties 
thus devolved upon me were entirely beyond my 



262 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

capacity : but my vice-chairman, Mr. William Bird, 
a leading British iron-master and London merchant, 
was as eminently qualified for those duties as I was 
deficient ; and between us the work was so done, that 
no complaint of its quality ever reached me. We had 
several most competent colleagues on our jury, among 
them M. Spitaels of Belgium, a director of the Vielle 
Montaigne Zinc Mines, and one of the wisest and best 
men I ever knew." 

When Mr. Greeley reached London, he immediately 
repaired to the residence of the publisher John Chap- 
man ; and this was his home during his stay in that 
city. 

Mr. Greeley was appointed by the commission a 
member of the jury on hardware; and of this jury he 
was made chairman.^ 

A great banquet was given by the London commis- 
sioners to the commissioners from foreign countries. 
Lord Ashburton, who presided at this banquet, desired 
that the toast in honor of Mr. Joseph Paxton, the 
architect of the Crystal Palace, should be given by an 
American ; and Mr. E-iddle, the commissioner from the 
United States, named Mr. Greeley as the proper man 
to do it, which he did in the following admirable 
speech : — 

" In my own land, my lords and gentlemen, where 
Nature is still so rugged and unconquered, where popu- 



MB. Greeley's visits to Europe. 263 

lation is yet so scanty, and the demands for human 
exertion are so various and urgent, it is but natural 
that we should render marked honor to labor, and 
especially to those who, by invention or discovery, con- 
tribute to shorten the processes and increase the effi- 
ciency of industry. It is but natural, therefore, that 
this grand conception of a comparison of the state of 
industry in all nations by means of a world's exhi- 
bition should there have been received and canvassed 
with a lively and general interest, — an interest which 
is not measured by the extent of our contributions. 

" Ours is still one of the youngest of the nations, 
with few large accumulations of the fruits of manufac- 
turing activity or artistic skill ; and these so generally 
needed for use, that we were not likely to send them 
three thousand miles away merely for show. 

" It is none the less certain that the progress of this 
great Exhibition, from its original conception to that 
perfect realization which we here commemorate, has 
been watched and discussed not more earnestly 
throughout the saloons of Europe than by the smith's 
forge and the mechanic's bench in America. 

" Especially the hopes and fears alternately pre- 
dominant on this side witJi respect to the edifice 
required for the Exhibition, the doubts as to the prac- 
ticabihty of erecting one sufficiently capacious and 
commodious to contain and display the contributions 



264 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

of the whole world, the apprehension that it could 
not be rendered impervious to water, the confident 
assertions that it could not be completed in season for 
opening the Exhibition on the 1st of May as promised, 
all found an echo on our shores ; and now the tid- 
ings that all these doubts have been dispelled, these 
difficulties removed, will have been hailed there with 
unmingled satisfaction. 

" I trust, gentlemen, that, among the ultimate fruits 
of this Exhibition, we are to reckon a wider and deeper 
appreciation of the worth of labor, and especially of 
those ' captains of industry ' by whose conceptions 
and achievements our race is so rapidly borne onward 
in its progress to a loftier and more benignant des- 
tiny. We shall be likely to appreciate more fully the 
merits of the wise statesman, by whose measures a 
people's thrift and happiness are promoted ; of the 
brave soldier, who joyfully pours out his blood in 
defence of the rights or in vindication of the honor of 
his country ; of the sacred teacher, by whose precepts 
and example our steps are guided in the pathway to 
heaven, — if we render fit honor also to those 'cap- 
tains of industry,' whose tearless victories redden no 
river, and whose conquering march is unmarked by 
the tears of the widow and the cries of the orphan. 
I give you, therefore, ' The health of Joseph Paxton, 
Esq., designer of the Crystal Palace.' " 



265 



His first trip to Europe was one of the most interest- 
ing events of his " busy life ;" and the first thing he 
did on his arrival in New York was to get out an 
extra, containing the news by " The Baltic," in advance 
of any other paper. This he was able to do, as h^ had 
fully prepared it on the voyage. He attended to this 
before he visited his home, thus showing how he 
was wedded to " The Tribune " and the editorial 
profession. 

In the spring of 1855, Mr. Greeley again visited 
Europe. This was the first year of the Paris Exposition. 
Mr. Greeley remained abroad this time three months. 
In this second visit abroad, Mr. Greeley was arrested on 
a claim for debt. In reference to this affair, he states 
the following as the ostensible ground of this arrest 
and imprisonment : " I had been looking at things, if 
not into them, for a good many years prior to yesterday. 
I had climbed mountains and descended into mines, 
had groped in caves and scaled precipices, seen Venice 
and Cincinnati, Dublin and Mineral Point, Niagara 
and St. Gothard, and really supposed I was approxi- 
mating a middling outside knowledge of things in 
general. I had been chosen defendant in several libel- 
suits, and been flattered with the information that my 
censures were deemed of more consequence than those 
of other people, and should be paid for accordingly. 
I have been through twenty of our States, yet never 

23 



266 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

in jail outside of New York ; and over half Europe, 
yet never looked into one. Here I had been seeing 
Paris for the last six weeks, visiting this sight, then 
that, till there seemed little remaining worth looking 
at or after ; yet I had never once thought of looking 
into a debtor's prison. I should probably have gone 
away next week as ignorant in that regard as I came, 
when circumstances favored me most unexpectedly 
with an inside view of this famous maison de detention^ 
or prison for debtors, 70 Rue de Clichy. I think what 
I have seen here, fairly told, must be instructive and 
interesting ; and I suppose others will tell the story if 
I do not, and I don't know any one whose opportunities 
will enable him to tell it so accurately as I have else- 
where. 

" But first let me explain and insist on the important 
distinction between inside and outside views of a prison. 
People fancy they have been in a prison when they 
have by courtesy been inside of the gates : but that is 
properly an outside view ; at best, the view accorded 
to an outsider. It gives you no proper idea of the 
place at all, — no access to its penetralia. The differ- 
ence even between this outside and the proper inside 
view is very broad indeed. The greenness of those 
who don't know how the world looks from the wrong 
side of the gratings is pitiable : yet how many reflect 
on the disdain with which the lion must regard the 



ME. Greeley's visits to eubope. 267 

bumpkin who perverts his goad-stick to the ignoble use 
of stirring said lion up ! or how many suspect that 
the grin wherewith the baboon contemplates the 
human ape, who, with umbrella at arm's-length, is 
poking Jocko for his doxy's delectation, is one of con- 
tempt rather tlian complacency ! Rely on it, the 
world seen here behind the gratings is very different 
in aspect from that same world otherwise inspected. 
Others may think so : I know it. And tliis is how : — 
" I had been down at the Palace of Industry, and 
returned to my lodgings, when, a little before four 
o'clock yesterday afternoon, four strangers called for 
me. By the help of my courier, I soon learned that 
they had a writ of arrest for me at the suit of one 
Mons. Lechesne, sculptor, affirming that he sent a 
statue to the New- York Crystal-palace Exhibition, at 
or on the way to which it had been broken, so that it 
could not be (at all events it had not been) restored 
to him : wherefore he asked of me, as a director 
and representative of the Crystal-palace Association, 
to pay him douze mille francs, or twenty-five hundred 
dollars." ... 

We should like to give the reader the balance of 
tills humorous description ; but space prevents. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

HORACE GREELEY'S VARIETY OP CHARACTERS. 

Mr. Greeley's Views of Working-Men. — Mr. Greeley as a Lecturer. — Mr. 
Greeley an Author. — The Work published. — Addresses and Essays. — 
All for the Working-Men. — Mr. Greeley as a Man of Letters. — The 
Great Trees of Mariposa. — His Honesty. — " The Tribune " an Educa- 
tor. — An Editor to speak reproachfully of Horace Greeley — what is he? 
— What Whittier, the Quaker-Poet, said. — How much it implies. — " He 
who would strike Horace Greeley would strike his Mother." — Testimony 
of Rev. Dr. Bellows; of W. E. Robinson; of the Poet Whittier. — Remarks 
on Mr. Greeley's Letter of Acceptance of the Cincinnati Nomination. — 
On his Dress. — Of his Inconsistency. — Proposal to buy the Slaves. — 
Signing Jeff. Davis's Bail. — Comparison between Abraham Lincoln and 
Horace Greeley in their Childhood and Youth: both Poor; both Readers; 
both loved by their Fellows; both excelled their Teachers. 

AS a working-man, he always worked himself. 
From a boy up, all along, personally, he has 
been a worker. 

But I now mean more than this, — more than that 
he worked with his own hands : I mean that he 
wished to do sometliing for the working-men by wliich 
they sliould receive more profit than the simple wages 
of a hireling for their labor. Mr. Greeley had 

268 



ME. Greeley's variety of characters. 269 

looked into organizations in society in various forms ; 
he had written and talked about common-stock move- 
ments, Fourierism, &c. ; till tliese questions seemed 
in some measure to be brought home to him : " Physi- 
cian, heal thyself; " make " The Tribune " a company 
concern. While Horace Greeley and McElrath are 
rich in owning -' The Tribune," and are talking about 
aiding the working-men to escape from the condition 
of mere hirelings, and be benefited by sharing in the 
profits of their labor, why not make " The Tribune " 
a stock association ? These men had a right to reply, 
as they often did, " If this is the true principle, and 
you are sincere in advocating it, Mr. Greeley, why not 
try it yourself ? ' Tribune ' of the people ! make 
the experiment ; practise what you preach." 

This was a.n argumentum ad hominem^ as well as an 
argumentum ad rem; and, as everybody acknowledged 
Mr. Greeley to be an honest man, there seemed to be 
no way for him to escape putting his advice into 
practice ; nor, indeed, did he wish to escape from it. 

So the establishment of " The Tribune " was valued 
at a hundred thousand dollars, and divided into a 
hundred shares of a thousand dollars each. The 
leading men in each department of " The Tribune " 
took shares, and finally to such an extent, that 
Messrs. Greeley and McElrath owned only about two- 
thirds of the concern. 

23* 



270 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

This experiment in the business of " The Tribune," 
so far as is known, has worked well ; and thus Mr. 
Greeley has united his preaching with his practice. 

Lecturing has, in these times, become a great 
business ; and every man of note in any way must 
try his hand at it, — some because they think they can 
do it well, others because they are pressed into the 
service. We rather think Mr. Greeley was of tlie 
latter class. In our opinion, papers are preferable to 
lectures. Mr. Greeley has succeeded in making a 
paper which has been appreciated by the public. He 
has also given many lectures which have contained 
much information. But he was never made for an 
orator. Still Mr. Parton, in his " Life of Horace 
Greeley," says, " Some who value oratory less than 
any other kind of labor, and wliom the tricks of elo- 
cution offend except when they are performed on the 
stage, — and even there they should be concealed, 
— have expressed the opinion that Mr. Greeley is, 
strictly speaking, one of the best speakers of which 
this metropolis can boast." 

Mr. Greeley has been very frequently called on to 
make speeches at public meetings and various enter- 
tainments. He has rarely declined such a call ; nor 
has he met it without saying something worth being 
heard. He has lectured upon many subjects, among 
which may be named the following: " What the Sister 



MR. GKEELEY's variety OF CHARACTERS. 271 

Arts teach as to Farming," " Emancipation of Labor," 

&G. 

In 1850 the Messrs. Harper published a volume of 
Mr. Greeley's Lectures and Essays, entitled " Hints 
toward Reforms." The work is somewhat of a curi- 
osity, and never had a very large sale, though some 
two thousand copies were disposed of. 

The title-page of these '' Hints," &c., contains 
three quotations, or mottoes, from three different 
authors. The first is poetical, from Rev. Henry Ware, 
as follows : — 

" Hasten the day, just Heaven ! 

Accomplish thy design, 
And let the blessings thou hast freely given 

Freely on all men shine, 
Till equal rights be equally enjoyed. 
And human power for human good employed ; 
Till Law, and not the Sovereign, rule sustain. 
And Peace and Virtue undisputed reign." 

The second is from Henry Ward Beecher, and is 
as follows : — 

" Listen not to the everlasting conservative, who pines and 
whines at every attempt to drive him from the spot where he has 
so lazily cast his anchor. Every abuse must be abolished. The 
whole system must be settled on the right basis. Settle it ten 
times, and settle it many, you will have the work to begin again. 
Be satisfied with nothing but the complete enfranchisement of 
humanity, and the restoration of man to the image of his God." 



272 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

The third one is from Charles Mackay, and is 
as follows : — 

" Once the welcome light has broken, 

Who shall say 
What the imagined glories of the day ? 
What the evil that shall perish 

In its ray ? 

Aid the dawning, tongue and pen I 
Aid it, hopes of honest men 1 
Aid it, paper ! aid it, type 1 
Aid it, for the hour is ripe ! 
And our earnest must not slacken 

Into play. 
Men of thought, and men of action, 

Clear the way." 

Though Mr. Greeley had probably written and 
published more that had been read than almost any 
other man in America, yet, so far as I am apprised, 
this was the first book ever sent forth from his pen. 
These lectures and essays were prepared for lyceums, 
young men's clubs and associations, &c. ; and the 
author says in his preface, " They were written in 
the years from 1842 to 1848 inclusive, each in haste, 
to fulfil some engagement already made, for which 
preparation had been delayed, under the pressure of 
seeming necessities, to the latest moment allowable. 



ME. Greeley's variety of characters. 273 

A calling whose exactions are seldom omitted for a 
day, never for a longer period, and whose require- 
ments, already excessive, seem perpetually to expand 
and increase, may well excuse the distraction of 
thought, and rapidity of composition, which it renders 
inevitable. At no time has it seemed practicable to 
devote a whole day, seldom a full half-day, to the 
production of any of the essays. Not until months 
after the last of them was written did the idea of 
collecting and printing them in this shape suggest 
itself; and a Imrried perusal is all that has since been 
given them." 

The one grand object of these lectures and essays 
seems to be the improvement and education of the 
working-classes. 

He says, " Why should those by whose toil all com- 
forts and luxuries are produced, or made available, 
enjoy so scanty a share of them ? Wliy should a man, 
able and eager to work, ever stand idle for want of 
employment in a world where so much needful work 
impatiently awaits the doing ? Wliy should a man be 
required to surrender something of liis independence 
in accepting employment which will enable liim to 
earn by honest effort the bread of liis family ? Why 
should the man who faithfully labors for another, and 
receives therefor less than the product of his labor, 
be currently held the obliged party, rather than he 



274 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

who buys the work, and makes a good bargain of it ? 
In short, why should speculation and scheming ride 
so jauntily in their carriages, splashing honest work as 
it trudges humbly and wearily by on foot ? " 

These are questions of common sense, and show how 
deeply interested Horace Greeley has been in the wel- 
fare of working-men, himself emphatically a working- 
man all his life. They were discussed years ago by the 
" philosopher," as he has been sometimes ironically 
called, as though he plainly foresaw all the movements 
of the laboring-classes in our day. All must admit 
Mr. Greeley had a heart fully sympathizing with this 
numerous class in the community, and a prescience 
far outstripping most of his coadjutors. But, as pre- 
viously said, the object of this book is not to unduly 
exalt the man, but to show him as he has been and 
now is. 

Mr. Greeley admits that the greatest obstacle to the 
progress and elevation of the working-man is to be 
found in himself, — in his own ignorance, improvidence, 
and want of temperance. Thus he talks about the 
man who will be successful in business, even when he 
is a boy : " A keen observer could have picked him out 
from among his schoolfellows, and said, ' Here is the 
lad who will die a bank-president, owning factories, 
and blocks of stores.' Trace his history closely, and 
you find that in his boyhood he was provident and 



MR. Greeley's variety of characters. 275 

frugal ; that lie shunned expense and dissipation ; 
that he feasted and quaffed seldom, unless at others' 
cost ; that he was rarely seen at balls or frolics ; 
that he was diligent in study and in business ; that 
he did not hesitate to do an uncomfortable job if it 
bade fair to be profitable ; that he husbanded his 
hours, and made each count one, either in earning, or 
in preparing to work efficiently." 

Thus he shows how a laboring-man makes him- 
self. 

So I might go on and exhibit his advice to the 
educated, — how they might create around them a hal- 
lowed atmosphere for the ignorant ; what an example 
they might set (as some do) of morals and refined 
manners, &c. 

So, did space allow, I might show Horace Greeley 
as a statesman, a farmer, a philanthropist ; but the 
limits prescribed to this volume will not permit it. 

A few words may be added here respecting him as 
a man of letters. We have referred to liis first book 
as an author. He made an overland journey from 
New York to San Francisco in 1859, of which he gave 
a full account in " The Tribune." It was, indeed, a 
wonderful exploring tour ; and any one, even now, 
must be greatly instructed, as well as amused, in reading 
his descriptions of what he saw and heard. We give a 
single extract, — a description of the trees of Mariposa, 



276 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

which he regarded as larger than those of Cala- 
veras : — 

" We went up to the Mariposa trees early next 
morning. The trail crosses a meadow of most luxu- 
riant wild grass, then strikes eastward up the hills, 
and rises almost steadily, but in the main not steeply, 
for five miles, when it enters and ends in a slight de- 
pression or valley, nearly on the top of this particular 
mountain, where the big trees have been quietly nestled 
for I dare not say how many thousand years. 

" That they were of very substantial size when David 
danced before the ark, when Solomon laid the foun- 
dations of the temple, when Theseus ruled in A^thens, 
when ^neas fled from the burning wreck of van- 
quished Troy, wh«n Sesostris led his victorious Egyp- 
tians into the heart of Asia, I have no manner of doubt. 
The big trees, of course, do not stand alone : I appre- 
hend that they could not stand at present, in view of the 
very moderate depth at which they are anchored to 
the earth. * 

" Had they stood on an unsheltered mountain-top, or 
even an exposed hillside, they would doubtless have 
been prostrated — as, I presume, thousands like them 
were prostrated — by the hurricanes of centuries before 
Christ's advent ; but the localities of these, though 
probably two thousand five hundred feet above the 
South Merced, and some four thousand five hundred 



MK. Greeley's variety of characters. 277 

above the sea, are sheltered and tranquil, though several 
of these trees have manifestly fallen within the present 
century. Unquestionably they are past their prime ; 
though to none more than to them is applicable the 
complimentary characterization of ' a green old age.' " 

A sketch of the life and career of Horace Greeley 
has now passed before us. It has not been the object 
of the compiler (for the work necessarily could be little 
more than a compilation) to applaud and exalt him 
above measure ; but as, since his nomination for the 
presidency, men, artists, editors, public officers, and 
those in high places, have descended to ridicule, 
scandalize, and vilify the former good name and 
blameless character of Horace Greeley, we cannot 
close this sketch of his life without bringing fairly 
before the reader the obligations we are under to this 
man. It is sadly to be regretted that no man can be 
nominated for the presidency of the United States 
without being pounced upon and covered with mud 
by those of less talent and honor than he. It was 
well said of the bully Rust, who attacked and beat 
Mr. Greeley during his congressional term, " The 
man who would strike Horace Greeley would strike 
his mother: "so the editor of a newspaper who would 
vilify Horace Greeley would not hesitate to degrade 
Washington or Lincoln. On this point we cannot do 

24 



278 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

better than quote the following from one of this pro- 
fession,— the editor of " The Telegraph" of Phila- 
delphia : — 

" We all know the record of his life, and tliat from 
the hour that he first went to New York a penniless, 
friendless boy, eager to do a man's work in the world, 
unto this day, when he is rich, famous, honored, no 
one has ever truly uttered a single word against his 
truth or his honesty. Last of all Americans should 
Mr. Nast's pencil of scurrility be pointed for him ; 
last of all should a newspaper editor or artist aid to 
degrade him : for to him, more than to any or all 
others, are newspaper men and the people indebted 
for the highest, noblest, purest type of newspaper 
excellence that this country has ever known. 

" In all the records of American journalism, there 
is no name that shines with such true and steady 
light as that of Horace Greeley. ' Theoretical ' he is 
called, and ' visionary.' Is ' The New- York Tribune ' 
a theory or a vision ? That is the work of his life ; 
the daily business of all his honorable, useful years. 
Slavery is dead : the theories of ' The Tribune ' edu- 
cated the people to kill slavery. The Republican 
party is the party that saved the country : ' The 
Tribune ' created the Republican party. Ask editors 
what its editorial management under Horace Greeley 
has been, and they reply, ' As nearly perfect as it 



ME. Greeley's vakiety of chabacteks. 279 

could be made.' Ask printers what its mechanical 
management and equipment are, and they answer, 
' Matchless.' 

" '■ Theoretical ' ? Yes : Horace Greeley has always 
been theoretical ; for there never has been an improve- 
ment suggested to him for making newspapers more 
valuable to the people that Horace Greeley has not 
I tested ; not one of real value that he has not adopted. 
It is a foul bird that soils its own nest, and it is an 
abject newspaper man indeed who throws dirt upon 
the foremost in America, — upon the one who has done 
! the most to make editing of a newspaper the noblest 
work that any of us ever set to do. There is not one 
( of us who can attempt to degrade Horace Greeley 
I without degrading himself; not one who can disgrace 
! him without disgracing his profession." 
I Everybody says Horace Greeley is honest ; and no 
I less a man than the poet Whittier, who has had a 
i~ lifelong acquaintance with him, says, " There are no 
I reasons of a moral or intellectual character why he 
j should not be elected president." Will any one tell 
us what reasons, then, can be adduced against his 
being chosen to fill that important station ? 

He is honest : then he will oppose stealing in all its 
multifarious phases. He will oppose bribery and 
corruption, which, to say the least, have appeared 
sometimes in our government. If, as Whittier says, 



280 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

he is intellectually qualified, he will know sufficient 
not to bestow offices upon men totally unqualified to 
fill them. 

Honesty and intellectuality will lead him to oppose 
a standing army in time of peace ; to withstand 
military and railroad rings, and all other rings that 
tend to swindle the people. 

Honesty and intellect combined will teach him 
better than to put all his relations, and those of his 
wife too, into government offices. He will not show 
the white feather when John Bull begins to bluster 
about " The Alabama " or any other claims. He will 
not proscribe men for holding political opinions 
contrary to his own, nor consider our greatest states- 
men disqualified for high positions because tliey may 
not fall in with his peculiar notions on some favorite 
plan of his own. He is in favor of putting honest 
men into office. He is in favor of peace ; nor is he 
one of those that " bite with their teeth, and cry 
peace " with their lips. As he is not a military char- 
acter, he is in favor of the civil forms superseding 
the military. He is in favor of giving every State its 
just right under the Constitution of the nation. He 
is in favor of universal suffrage, universal amnesty, 
and universally allowing men to vote as they please. 
He is in favor of the one-term presidency, — that a 
president shall not employ his first four years in 



MR. Greeley's variety of characters. 281 

electioneering for a second election. He is in favor 
of the laboring-classes, as one must necessarily be 
who has worked his own way up from that of a poor 
boy to his present high and honorable condition in 
life. By his own iron will and his indomitable 
industry he mastered poverty and adversity, as Frank- 
lin of the same craft did, till he has placed himself in 
honorable and independent circumstances. He is in 
favor of our republican institutions ; and, while he 
stands on an advanced Republican platform, it is no 
disparagement to him that the Democracy has adopted 
the same, and selected him, as did the Republicans, 
as their leader, and to be the next president of the 
United States of America. 

A few specimens may be given from gentlemen of 
letters, of high religious character, of editors, and even 
of office-holders, who have known Horace Greeley, and 
labored with him many years in the editorial profession 
and in various other walks of life. 

Rev. Dr. Bellows, who has lived and labored side 
by side with Horace Greeley in the cit}^ in " The 
Liberal Christian " says, " At home in city and country, 
and on both sides of tlie continent ; with the qualities 
of the Yankee, — simple as shrewd, and shrewd as 
simple ; good-natured as a healthy child, and passion- 
ate as the same on occasions ; a wide lover of his 
species, and a tremendous hater of many of its individ- 

24* 



282 LIEE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

ual varieties ; open as the day, and inscrutable as the 
night ; devoted to principle when not absorbed by 
measures ; strong as a giant when some political 
Delilah has not shorn his locks in her lap ; so pure 
that dirt won't stick to him, which makes him a little 
too free in going into it ; not to be known by his 
associates, because quite superior to many of them ; 
capable of a superhuman frankness and a Trappian 
silence, — certainly America finds in him at this mo- 
ment its most characterisSr representative. He is the 
American par excellence^ 

Take the following from the testimony of W. E. 
Robinson in an address from a speech in Brooklyn, 
N.Y. : — 

" Over thirty years ago, while in Yale College, it 
was my good fortune to become acquainted with 
Horace Greeley. It was before ' The Tribune ' was 
started, and while he was editing ' The New-Yorker' 
and ' Log-Cabin.' Soon after ' The Tribune ' was es- 
tablished, I became its Washington correspondent, and 
was connected with it as correspondent and assistant 
editor more than ten years. After ceasing to be his cor- 
respondent and assistant, I was for nearly ten years his 
lawyer. I saw much of him, had much correspondence 
with him, and ought to know him well, and be able to 
give a proper estimate of his character ; and such an 
estimate as I am able to give I shall submit to you, my 
neighbors and friends, in all truth and sincerity. 



MR, GREELEY'S VAEIETY OF CHARACTEBS. 283 

^' Some things can be said of Horace Greeley which 
no libeller even dare question. He is a natural demo- 
cratic republican of the best type. Burns was not a 
truer democrat, nor was Jefferson a purer republican. 
I venture to say that no man could detect a change in 
his countenance, whether a duke asked him for infor- 
mation, or an outcast solicited alms. With him, above 
all men I ever knew, rank and wealth are nothing : 
manhood is the gold, and mind the true nobility. He 
is the ablest writer and chief journalist among the giant 
intellects of our day. His life is one of singular purity 
and simplicity. He never forgets his friends. His 
word once given, and you can stake your life on its 
performance ; and his monogram, written on his face 
and in his heart by the Almighty, and inscribed by 
himself on every step of his career from the dawn of 
early childhood to the noon of honored manhood, is 
honesty. His charity is unbounded. I can convey no 
idea of this trait of his character. Hour after hour, 
and daily, I have seen the destitute and heart-broken of 
both sexes, the unfortunate outcasts and wanderers 
from all climes and all classes, invade the ever-open 
door of his charity ; and never have I seen any one 
' sent empty away ' while he had a shilling or could 
borrow one. I often looked on with amazement, 
knowing his antipathy to whiskey and tobacco, as I 
have seen some poor creature, whom he had known in 



284 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

earlier days, staggering to his desk, and asking for relief, 
which was not denied, even under the certainty that it 
would be left in the first bar-room. I have seen his 
hat full of protested notes on which he had lent money ; 
and when, as his lawyer, I have remonstrated with him 
for taking such paper, he usually replied that any one 
would lend on good paper. It was those that could 
not borrow elsewhere, and on paper negotiable nowhere, 
that complimented him with tlieir business. He is a 
singularly pure and modest man. In thirty years of 
pretty intimate acquaintance, I never heard him use a 
word that would bring the slightest flutter of crimson 
to the purest clieek that womanhood ever unveiled to 
society. I do not believe that he ever told or could be 
induced to listen to a vulgar story. And this almost 
superhuman purity of character is perhaps what has 
made him such a favorite among talented and refilled 
women. For, although woman was the cause of our 
losing Eden, she brought with her more than man did 
of its purity ; and its loss would have been intolerable 
if Adam had failed to bring her with him. 

" But there are things in his character about which 
people differ, or pretend to differ. Even those who 
concede to him the great virtues I have mentioned 
pretend to deprecate his election to the presidency 
through fear that he lacks sound judgment, executive 
ability, financial skill, and discrimination of character. 



MR. Greeley's variety of characters. 285 
K 

£ow wofiillj they are mistaken who seem to see the 
adow of those suspicions his election and brilliant 
[ministration will show. I have had some experience 
'among public men for many years at Washington ; I 
'4iave known intimately most of the illustrious Ameri- 
lican statesmen of the second generation, — Clay, 
i Webster, Calhoun, Benton, Crittenden, Mangum, and 
ii others; and I never knew any one whose judgment 
was more keen and unerring, whose ideas of executive 
"^management were more enlarged and liberal, whose 
: knowledge of finance and political economy was clearer 
^ or more extensive, and whose estimate of character was 
more quick and comprehensive : and, if we honestly 
weigh his character against that of the more and less 
illus^irious of those who have filled the executive chair, 
» we shall discover in him the honesty of Washington, 
the brain of Jefferson, the firmness of Jackson, and 
the wisdom of half a dozen of our later presidents ; 
' while, as a writer, he is far superior to them all. It 
will be something to boast of to see once more in 
^ the chair of Washington an honest and an able man. 
It will be something to boast of, that, at the close of 
^ tlie first century of our government, the ablest writer 
that ever filled the executive chair was elected by our 
votes. It will be a pleasure worth a century's waiting 
^ to read his messages. 

" There is a stubborn fear among certain nervous 



286 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

monej-bags that things are going to ruin if Greeley is 
elected ; and this is said by men who have felt proud 
of having voted for Harrison, Polk, Lincoln, and Grant. 
It is not my cue to say any thing against Gen. Grant ; 
I think the country owes him too much to hear with 
pleasure any thing against him personally : but what 
was he when taken from his Missouri tannery, in 
knowledge and character, compared with Horace 
Greeley ? What was Abraham Lincoln, cracking 
jokes on Western circuits, compared with Horace 
Greeley, except what he had learned, as I have often 
heard him acknowledge, from Mr. Greeley's paper ? 
What was Gen. Taylor, or James K. Polk, or Gen. 
Harrison, or all of them put together, for ability, states- 
manship, and character, before they were elected^ as 
compared with Horace Greeley ? Clay, Calhoun, 
Benton, and Webster could not get the chair which 
Harrison, Polk, and Tyler filled ; and, when Lincoln 
was nominated, the same sneers were common against 
him that now salute Mr. Greeley. His boots and dress 
and walk and dignity were no better than Greeley's. 
He was a rail-splitter, as Mr. Greeley is a wood-chopper ; 
but, for all that, what rank does he hold among our 
recent presidents ? Second only to that with which 
Mr. Greeley will retire in 1877. 

" Do these men, who object to him as wanting in 
ability, not know that he has taught most of our living 



ME. Greeley's variety of characters. 287 

statesmen what they know ? But, while knowledge is 
power, honesty is the craving of the nation's heart ; 
and in no one so much as in Mr. Greeley can that 
craving be gratified. He is thoroughly upright and 
ingrained, and stubbornly honest. There is not gold 
enough in California nor stamps enough in the national 
currency to bribe him to do a dishonest act. You 
could as easily drive the most stubborn mule that ever 
braced his foot against his driver's mandate as to drive 
Mr. Greeley into the path way which leads to dishon- 
esty." 

I here adduce the letter of a lifelong friend of Mr. 
Greeley ; one well known in the community, and of 
irreproachable character and unimpeachable integ- 
rity ; moreover, one who has labored shoulder to 
shoulder with Mr. Greeley for a quarter of a century 
in the antislavery cause : — 

WHAT THE QUAKER POET THINKS OF THE 
PHILOSOPHER. 

The following letter from Mr. John G. Whittier 
appeared in " The Springfield Republican : " — 

Amesbury, lOth 5th mo., 1872. 
Edwix Morton, Esq., Boston. 

Dear Sir, — Thy note of to-day is just received. 
In replying to it, I must premise that I have no inten- 
tion, at this time, of entering into the question of the 



288 LITE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

presidency, further than to say that the recent com- 
plications of this question may be largely attributed 
to an attempt to forbid the right of choice of candi- 
dates to Republicans in advance of the nominating 
convention, and to the deliberate insult to the friends 
of freedom in the treatment of Senator Sumner. As 
regards the subject of thy inquiry, I have no hesita- 
tion in saying that I place a very high estimate upon 
the character, moral and intellectual, of Horace 
Greeley. He is a man of whom his countrymen, 
irrespective of politics, may well be proud. He has 
built up in his sixty years a noble reputation. The 
poor attempts to ridicule him, and to underrate his 
eminent abiUty, at the present time, on the part of 
some of our Republican papers, are best answered by 
the eulogiums bestowed upon him in their own 
columns heretofore. He can well afford to smile at 
the feeble arrows of sarcasm which are expended on 
his " white great-coat," and fail to reach the man 
beneath it. Personally he is the most popular man 
in the United States. It is very possible there may 
be good reasons why he should not be president ; but 
they are not to be found in his moral character, his 
intellect, his principles, his purposes, his knowledge 
of the interests and resources of the country. I 
have no wish, as I have no reason, to withhold my 
good opinion of an old friend at a time when so 



MR. Greeley's variety of characters. 289 

many Republicans deem it advisable, as a party expe- 
dient, to assail him personally as well as politically. 
I am very truly thy friend, 

John G. Whittier. 

There are many erroneous opinions abroad respecting 
Horace Greeley. Some of them are, we doubt not, 
seriously believed ; and some, it is feared, are stated to 
draw votes from him in the coming election. 

He is said to be '" careless in his dress," and " wear- 
ing his pants over one boot and under the other,'' with 
much more of the same sort. The writer saw him in 
his recent visit to the Jubilee in Boston, and can testify 
that he has not inspected a more cleanly and decent- 
ly dressed man for many years ; and he has seen a few 
within that time. " Tlie Cincinnati Commercial " 
says of him, — 

" The fact is, Mr. Greeley is a very well-dressed man. 
His linen is faultless ; and, while his cravat-tie is never 
elaborate, it is usually in the right place. He attends 
dinner-parties frequently, wearing a dress-coat ; and in 
the neatness of his hands and feet he is noticeable. 
Strange as it may appear, his boots are smartly pol- 
ished ; and his hands, notwithstanding his wood-chop- 
ping performances, are small and white, and in form 
symmetrical. Many a fine lady would be proud to 
have hands of their whiteness and taper fingers." 

26 



290 LIFE OF HORACE GEEELEY. 

It is said he is a " vegetarian ; don't eat meat." 
This, also, is untrue, as has been seen in his own ac-' 
count of Grahamism. He is not a glutton, but par- 
takes of all kinds of wholesome food. He is not as 
corpulent and ridiculously rotund as Nast (rather 
Nasty) caricatures him as being, but is of fair and 
liberal development for a man of his years. 

He is not a " wine-bibber." There is no doubt 
about it that he is a strict temperance man. He never, 
under any circumstances, tastes intoxicating liquor ; 
enjoys his glass of water when the wine flows ; and 
dissipates in a cup of tea. Tobacco he detests ; but, 
being a philosopher, he sometimes sits in a cloud of 
tobacco-smoke with complacency. 

It is charged that Greeley, after telling the South to 
go, shouted, " On to Richmond ! " He did neither the 
one thing nor the other. When hostilities were 
commenced by the bombardment of a United-States 
fort by order of the provisional government of se- 
ceded and confederated States, those who had striven 
most earnestly for peace, and who had been willing to 
make the greatest sacrifices to preserve it, were not 
tlie least energetic in urging the prosecution of the 
war. The words " On to Richmond " were not Mr. 
Greeley's, but Mr. Dana's ; and they were right words. 
The imbecility that divided our army, and held half 
of it loitering at Harper's Ferry while the other half 



was beaten at Bull Run bj the whole force of the con- 
federates, does not prove that those who favored a de- 
cided march upon Richmond at that time were wrong. 
The rebel veteran army that afterwards contested for 
years the road to Richmond was not then in existence. 
At Bull Run the main question was, which raw army 
would run first ; and the flight happened to be toward 
Washington rather than toward Richmond. If the 
army fooled away under Patterson had appeared on 
Beauregard's flank, the movement would have been 
" on to Richmond," sure enough. 

He is said to be cross and quarrelsome, and rude in 
his manners. I can bear testimony to the falsehood 
of such a statement. He is a genial, companionable 
gentleman. He may be sharp upon loafers who seek 
to waste his time upon nothing of moment, especially 
where he has an editorial half done, and the printer is 
waiting for the residue. In some such case, he may 
have " answered a fool according to his folly ; " and 
what wise editor would not do the same ? Those 
who are specially troubled about his manners may con- 
trast his bearing with that of another gentleman who 
had " the freedom of our city " at the late Jubilee, and 
take their choice. 

It has been said that Greeley, in a pusillanimous 
way, begged for peace, and embarrassed President 
Lincoln. The truth is, in that connection he per- 



292 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

formed a public service of value ; and, if greater at- 
tentiou had been paid him by Lincoln, he would have 
done better for the country. Here is the case : The 
rebels assumed to be for peace. All they wanted, it 
will be remembered, was to be let alone. The North- 
ern sympathizers with the Rebellion cried, " Peace, 
peace, when there was no peace ; " and their vocifera- 
tion was, that the war had failed to restore the Union, 
and that we must try and restore it by peaceful 
measures. 

At this juncture there was the news that persons 
authorized to propose terms of peace were on the 
borders. Greeley, wisely and well, advised the presi- 
dent that here was an opportunity that must not be 
neglected. The thing to do was to see whether the 
proposed or self-styled negotiators had authority, and 
what they wanted. Greeley knew, and Lincoln knew, 
that the confederates were unwilling to negotiate for 
peace on the basis of the restoration of the Union. It 
was quite certain that the terms they would propose 
must be wholly inadmissible. Very well. Undoubted 
evidence that there could be no tolerable peace, no 
peace on the basis of the Union, would practically 
unite the North. The fangs of the copperheads would 
be at once drawn. Mr. Greeley insisted that so great 
an opportunity should not be thrown away ; and he 
was clearly right. 



MR. Greeley's variety of characters. 293 

Well, Greeley proposed " to buy the slaves, and pay 
four hundred million dollars for their emancipation." 
If this were so, it showed his wisdom and foresight ; 
for, if his plan had been adopted, we should have 
saved six hundred million dollars (for the v/ar cost a 
billion) ; and thousands of widows and orphans would 
have blessed Horace Greeley to their dying-day. 

Well, Greeley bailed Jeff. Davis : so he did ; and 
Greeley ought to be " kilt " for it ; while Gerritt Smith, 
who did the same, was a fit man to go to Philadelphia 
to renominate Grant. It was an old Roman maxim, 
Tittilla me^ tittillabo te^ — "Tickle me, and I'll tickle 
you." No matter what any man has ever done, if he 
will now tickle Grant, and stickle for him. Yes, Gree- 
ley signed Jeff. Davis's bond. Why should he not ? 
This great public criminal, with hands reeking with 
the blood of half a million men, was admitted to bail 
by the Supreme Court of the United States, with the 
full approval of the president and his cabinet. It was 
notorious that the administration did not intend to try 
him, or they never would have allowed bail for this 
wholesale murderer, while it is uniformly denied to 
the most ignorant wretch who takes a single life. If 
any man in the country is responsible for the bailing 
of Jeff. Davis, it is Ulysses S. Grant ; for he, by dis- 
charging on parole Lee and his compeers in crime, 
and by insisting that the faith of the country was 

25* 



294 LIFE OF HOEACE GREELEY. 

pledged to hold them harmless, rendered it impossible 
that any of the traitors should be punished. Besides, 
the government, by exchanging prisoners, acknowl- 
edged the South to be belligerents; and to have 
hung or shot Davis after his capture would have been 
a violation of international law. 

Well, there must be a cat under that white heap : 
therefore all the rebels are going to vote for Greeley. 
Are they ? Where is Henry A. Wise, who hung John 
Brown ; Mosby, the vilest leader of a band of cut- 
throats ; Longstreet, and a hundred others ? In fact, 
if the Grantites don't lie, all the South, blacks and 
whites both, are going for Grant. This is a weapon 
with two edges. 

But I commenced to write the Life of Horace 
Greeley by special request, and did not mean to say a 
•word about Grant ; and but for what is well known to 
be palpable falsehood about Greeley would any refer- 
ence have been had to the other candidate for the 
presidency. The old adage should be remembered by 
some of the Grant papers, " People who dwell in 
glass houses," &c. 

COMPARISON OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND 
HORACE GREELEY. 

There were many things in common in the boy- 
hood of "Abe Lincoln," our late martyred and greatly- 



MK. GREELEY S VARIETY OP CHARACTERS. 295 

lamented president, and Horace Greeley, the present 
candidate for the same high office. Indeed, in some 
respects, there was a resemblance between Thomas 
Lincoln, the father of Abe, and Zaccheus Greeley, 
the father of Horace. But preference must be given 
to Zach Greeley over Tom Lincoln. Both were 
poor ; both failed to pay for the land they bought ; 
both were rovers, going from place to place, and from 
State to State, — Tom from Kentucky to Lidiana 
and Illinois, and Zach from New Hampshire to 
Vermont and Pennsylvania. Tom was assisted 
greatly by his son Abe, and Zach by his son 
Horace. There was a resemblance between the spell- 
ing of the names of the Lincoln and the Greeley 
families : the former was spelled '• Linckhorn," or 
" Linckhern," or *' Lincoln : " the latter was spelled 
"Grely," " Greale," " Greele," and " Greeley." 

But between their sons Abe and Horace there 
was a still more striking resemblance. Abe was 
born in a solitary cabin, on a desolate spot, — a little 
knoll in the midst of a barren glade on Nolin Creek, 
in Kentucky, Feb. 12, 1809. 

Abe, when about eight years old, dabbled in the 
water, and came near being drowned on one occasion 
when attempting to " coon " on Knob Creek, and 
was saved only by tlie strenuous efforts of John 
Duncan, the boy that was with him. Quite a re- 



296 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

semblance here between this and Horace, — saved by 
his little brother from a similar fate in Hubbarton 
Creek, when in his thirteenth year. 

Abe was always chiding other boys for being cruel 
to animals : he talked against, made speeches about, 
and wrote poetry against, this practice. Horace, 
always tender of animals, when he saw a boy throw 
stones (a thing he never did) at a hog, rebuked him, 
saying, " Now, you oughtn't to throw stones at that 
hog: he don't know any thing." 

Abe had but little schooling. His first teacher 
was Hazel Dorsey, and his log schoolhouse was a mile 
and a half from his father's cabin ; and, years after, it 
was said, by those who survived, that Abe was even 
then the equal, if not the superior, of any scholar 
in his class. This " schoolhouse was built of unhewn 
logs, and had holes for windows, in which greased 
paper served for glass." Abe's whole schooling was 
not more than six months ; and the reason was. 
" it was no use ; for he excelled all his masters : so 
he studied at home." 

How apt was this resemblance to Horace's school- 
ing, in the teachers, the boy, the schoolhouse, and the 
studying at home because it was no use to go to 
school ! for, said Horace's teacher, " he knows more 
than I do." 

Abe's dress was as follows : " He wore low shoes, 



ME. GEEELEY's variety OF CHAEACTEES. 297 

buckskin breeches, linsey-woolsey shirt, and a cap 
made of the skin of an opossum. The breeches 
clung close to his thighs and legs, but failed by a large 
space to meet the tops of his shoes : twelve inches re- 
mained uncovered, and exposed that much of ' shin- 
bone, sharp, blue, and narrow.' " 

Horace's dress we have seen to have been " a straw 
hat, generally in a state of dilapidation ; a tow shirt, 
never buttoned ; a pair of trousers made of the family 
material, very short in both legs, but one shorter than 
the other." 

Abe read all the books he could get either by buy- 
ing or borrowing. He borrowed Weems's " Life of 
Washington " of Josiah Crawford ; laid it where it got 
wet; and Crawford made him "pull fodder" three 
days, at twenty-five cents a day, to pay for it. The 
books he read were "The Kentucky Preceptor," 
^sop's " Fables," " Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's 
" Pilgrim's Progress," " History of the United States," 
" Arabian Nights," <fec. 

The books that Horace found in his father's house 
were very few, — the Bible, Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress," " The Confession of Faith." " The American 
Preceptor " was the first book he ever owned. He 
read Byron, Shakspeare, and Mrs. Hemans's poems. 

Both Abe and Horace loved to fish. 

Both were peace-makers among their schoolmates, 



298 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

and both were beloved by all the boys of their ac- 
quaintance ; and neither had an enemy. 

Both were politicians from childhood. 

Both were perfectly honest. Abe would do all lie 
promised to do, and Horace always did his " stint.'* 

Both wrote poetry. Here is some of Abe's when a 
mere boy : — 

" Let auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And never brought to mind, 
And Jackson be our president, 
And Adams left behind." 

In his first copy-book Abe wrote, — 

" Abraham Lincoln, his hand and pen : 
He will be good ; but God knows when." 

Again he wrote, — 

" Abraham Lincoln is my name. 
And with my pen I write the same : 
I'll be a good boy ; but God knows when." 

Again, — 

" Good boys who to their books apply 
Will all be great men by and by." 

We have already given specimens of Horace's 
poetry. 

It must be confessed, that, in one thing, the compari- 
son between Abe and Horace does not hold. Abe was 
an excellent penman : Horace is not so good ; though 
the latter's would bear comparison with that of the 
late Rufus Choate. 



ADDRESS AND PLATFORM. 299 



THE ADDRESS AND PLATFORM OF THE LIBERAL RE- 
PUBLICANS ASSEMBLED IN CONVENTION AT CIN- 
CINNATI, May 3, 1872. 

The administration now in power has rendered itself guilty of wanton 
disregard of the laws of the land, and of usurping powers not granted 
by the Constitution : it has acted as if the laws had binding force only 
for those who are governed, and not for those who govern. It has thus 
struck a blow at the fundamental principles of constitutional govern- 
ment and the liberties of the citizen. The President of the United 
States has openly used the powers and opportunities of his high office 
for the promotion of personal ends. He has kept notoriously corrupt 
and unworthy men in places of power and responsibility, to the detri- 
ment of the public interest. He has used the public service of the 
government as a machinery of corruption and personal influence, and 
has interfered with tyrannical arrogance in the political aflfairs of states 
and municipalities. He has rewarded with influential and lucrative 
offices men who had acquired his favor by valuable presents ; thus stim- 
ulating the demoralization of our political life by his conspicuous 
example. He has shown himself deplorably unequal to the tasks im- 
posed upon him by the necessities of the country, and culpably careless 
of the responsibilities of his high office. The partisans of the adminis- 
tration, assuming to be the Republican party, and controlling its organ- 
ization, have attempted to justify such wrongs, and palliate such abuses, 
to the end of maintaining partisan ascendency. They have stood in the 
way of necessary investigations and indispensable reforms, pretending 
that no serious fault could be found with the present administration of 
public affairs ; thus seeking to blind the eyes of the people. They have 
kept alive the passions and resentments of the late civil war, to usS them 
for their own advantage. They have resorted to arbitrary measures in 
direct conflict with the organic law, instead of appealing to the better 
instincts and latent patriotism of the Southern people by restoring to 
them their rights, the enjoyment of which is indispensable to a success- 
ful administration of their local affairs, and would tend to revive a 
patriotic and hopeful national feeling. They have degraded themselves 
and the name of their party, once justly entitled to the confidence of 
the nation, by a base sycophancy to the dispenser of executive power 
and patronage, unworthy of republican freemen. They have sought to 
silence the voice of just criticism and stifle the moral sense of the people, 



300 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

and to subjugate public opinion by tyrannical party-discipline. They 
are striving to maintain themselves in authority for selfish ends by an 
nnscrupulous use of the power which rightfully belongs to the people, 
and should be employed only in the service of the country. Believing 
that an organization thus led and controlled can no longer be of service 
to the best interests of the republic, we have resolved to make an in- 
dependent appeal to the sober judgment, conscience, and patriotism 
of the American people. Therefore 

We, the Liberal Republicans of the United States, in national con- 
vention assembled at Cincinnati, proclaim the following principles as 
essential to just government : — 

THE PLATFORM. 

First, We recognize the equality of all men before the law, and hold 
that it is the duty of government, in its dealings with the people, to 
mete out equal and exact justice to all, of whatever nativity, race, color, 
or persuasion, religious or political. 

Second, We pledge ourselves to maintain the union of these States, 
emancipation and enfranchisement, and to oppose any re-opening of the 
questions settled by the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments 
of the Constitution. 

lliird, We demand the immediate and absolute removal of all the 
disabilities imposed on account of the Rebellion, which was finally sub- 
dued seven years ago, believing that universal amnesty will result in 
complete pacification in all sections of the country. 

Fourth, Local self-government with impartial suffrage will guard the 
rights of all citizens more securely than any centralized power. The 
public welfare requires the supremacy of the civil over the military 
authority, and the freedom of persons under the protection of the habeas 
corpus. We demand for the individual the largest liberty consistent 
with public order, for the state self-government, and for the nation a 
return to the methods of peace and the constitutional limitations 
of power. 

Fijlh, The civil service of the government has become a mere instru- 
ment of partisan tyranny and personal ambition, and an object of selfish 
greed. It is a scandal and reproach upon free institutions, and breeds 
a demoralization dangerous to the perpetuity of republican government. 

Sixth, We therefore regard a thorough reform of the civil service as 
one of the most pressing necessities of the hour ; that honesty, capacity, 
and fidelity constitute the only valid claims to public employment ; 



OFFICIAL NOTICE. 301 

that the offices of the government cease to be a matter of arbitrary 
favoritism and patronage, and that public station shall become again a 
place of honor. To this end, it is imperatively required that no presi- 
dent shall be a candidate for re-election. 

Seventh, We demand a system of federal taxation which shall not 
unnecessarily interfere with the industry of the people, and which shall 
provide the means necessary to pay the expenses of the government 
economically administered, the pensions, the interest on the public debt, 
and a moderate annual reduction of the principal thereof; and, recog- 
nizing that there are in our midst honest but irreconcilable differences 
of opinion with regard to the respective systems of protection and free 
trade, we remit the discussion of the subject to the people in their con- 
gressional districts, and the decision of Congress thereon, wholly free 
from executive interference or dictation. 

Eighth, The public credit must be sacredly maintained; and we 
denounce repudiation in every form and guise. 

Ninth, A speedy return to specie payment is demanded alike by the 
highest considerations of commercial morality and honest government. 

Tenth, We remember with gratitude the heroism and sacrifices of the 
soldiers and sailors of the republic ; and no act of ours shall ever detract 
from their justly-earned fame or the full rewards of their patriotism. 

Eleventh, We are opposed to all further grants of land to railroads or 
other corporations. The public domain should be held sacred to actual 
settlers. 

Twelfth, We hold that it is the duty of the government in its inter- 
course with foreign nations to cultivate the friendships of peace by 
treating with all on fair and equal terms ; regarding it alike dishonor- 
able either to demand what is not right, or submit to what is wrong. 

Thirteenth, For the promotion and success of these vital principles, 
and the support of the candidates nominated by this convention, we 
invite and cordially welcome the co-operation of all patriotic citizens, 
without regard to previous political affiliations. 



OFFICIAL NOTICE TO MR. GREELEY OF THE LIBERAL 
REPUBLICAN NOMINATION. 

Cincinnati, O., May 3, 1872. 
Dear Sir,- — The National Convention of the Liberal Republi- 
cans of the United States have instructed the undersigned, president, 
vice-president, and secretaries of the convention, to inform you that 

26 



302 LIFE OP HORACE GREELEY. 

you have been nominated as the candidate of the Liberal Republicans 

lor the presidency of the United States. We also submit to you the 

address and resolutions unanimously adopted by the convention. 

Be pleased to signify to us your acceptance of the platform and 

the nomination; and believe us 

Very truly yours, 

C. ScHURZ, President. 

,„ „ , ^ Geo. W. Julian, Vice-President. 

William E. McLean, ^ 

John G. Davidson, C Secretaries. 
J. H. Rhodes, ) 

Hon. Horace Greeley, New- York City. 

MR. GREELEY'S REPLY. 

New York, May 20, 1872. 

Gentlemen, — I have chosen not to acknowledge your letter of 
the 3d inst. until I could learn how the work of your convention was 
received in all parts of our great country, and judge whether that 
work was approved and ratified by the mass of our fellow-citizens. 
Their response from day to day has reached me through telegrams, 
letters, and the comments of journalists, independent of official patron- 
age, and indifferent to the smiles or frowns of power. The number 
and character of these unconstrained, unpurchased, and unsolicited 
utterances, satisfy me that the movement which found expression at 
Cincinnati has received the stamp of public approval, and been hailed 
by a majority of our countrymen as the harbinger of a better day 
for the republic. I do not misinterpret this approval as especially 
complimentary to myself, nor even to the chivalrous and justly- 
esteemed gentleman with whose name I thank your convention for 
associating mine : I receive and welcome it as a spontaneous and 
deserved tribute to that admirable platform of principles wherein your 
convention so tersely, so lucidly, so forcibly set forth the convictions 
which impelled and the purposes which guided its course, — a plat- 
form which, casting behind it the wreck and rubbish of worn-out 
contentions and bygone feuds, embodies in fit and few words the 
needs and aspirations of to-day. Though thousands stand ready to 
condemn your every act, hardly a syllable of criticism or cavil has 
been aimed at your platform, of which the substance may be fairly 
epitomized as follows : — 

First, All the political rights and franchises which have been 



LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. 303 

acquired through our late bloody convulsion must and shall be guar- 
anteed, maintained, enjoyed, and respected evermore. 

Second, All the political rights and franchises which haA^e been 
lost through that convulsion should and must be promptly restored 
and re-established, so that there shall be henceforth no proscribed 
class and no disfranchised caste within the limits of our Union, 
whose long-estranged people shall re-unite and fraternize upon the 
broad basis of universal amnesty with impartial suffrage. 

Tliird, That, subject to our solemn constitutional obligation to 
maintain the equal rights of all citizens, our policy should aim at 
local self-government, and not at centralization ; that the civil author- 
ity should be supreme over the military ; that the writ of habeas 
corpus should be jealously upheld as the safeguard of personal free- 
dom ; that the individual citizen should enjoy the largest liberty con- 
sistent with public order; and that there shall be no federal sub- 
version of the internal policy of the several states and municipalities, 
but that each shall be left to enforce the rights and promote the well- 
being of its inhabitants by such means as the judgment of its own 
people shall prescribe. 

Fourth, There shall be a real and not merely a simulated reform 
in the civil service of the republic; to which end it is indispensable 
that the chief dispenser of its vast official patronage shall be shielded 
from the main temptation to use his power selfishly by a rule inex- 
orably forbidding and precluding his re-election. 

Fifth, That the raising of revenue, whether by tariff or otherwise, 
shall be recognized and treated as the people's immediate business, 
to be shaped and directed by them through their representatives in 
Congress, whose action thereon the president must neither overrule 
by his veto, attempt to dictate, nor presume to punish by bestowing 
office only on those who agree with him, or withdrawing it from 
those who do not. 

Sixth, That the public lands must be sacredly reserved for occupa- 
tion and acquisition by cultivators, and not recklessly squandered on 
the projectors of railroads for which our people have no present need, 
and the premature construction of which is annually plunging us 
into deeper and deeper abysses of foreign indebtedness. 

Seventh, That the achievement of these grand purposes of uni- 
versal beneficence is expected and sought at the hands of all who 
approve them, irrespective of past affiliations. 

Eighth, That the public faith must at all hazards be maintained, 
and the national credit preserved. 



304 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

Ninth, That the patriotic devotedness and inestimable services of 
our fellow-citizens, who, as soldiers or sailors, upheld the flag and 
maintained the unity of the republic, shall ever be gratefully remem- 
bered and honorably requited. 

These propositions, so ably and forcibly presented in the platform 
of your convention, have already fixed the attention and commanded 
the assent of a large majority of our countrymen, who joyfully adopt 
them, as I do, as the basis of a true, beneficent national reconstruction 
of a new departure from jealousies, strifes, and hates, which have no 
longer adequate motive or even plausible pretext, into an atmosphere 
of peace, fraternity, and mutual good-will. In vain do the drill-ser- 
geants of decaying organizations flourish menacingly their truncheons, 
and angrily insist that the files shall be closed and straightened. 

In vain do the whippers-in of parties once vital, because rooted in 
the vital needs of the hour, protest against straying and bolting, 
denounce men nowise their inferiors as traitors and renegades, and 
threaten them with infamy and ruin. I am confident that the Ameri- 
can people have already made your cause their own, fully resolved 
that their brave hearts and strong arms shall bear it on to triumph. 
In this fact, and with the distinct understanding, that, if elected, I 
shall be the president, not of a party, but of the whole people, I accept 
your nomination, in the confident trust that the masses of our coun- 
trymen, north and south, are eager to clasp hands across the bloody 
chasm which has too long divided them, forgetting that they have been 
enemies in the joyful consciousness that they are and must henceforth 
remain brethren. 

Yours gratefully, 

Horace Greblet. 

To Hon. Carl Schurz, President, Hon. George W. Julian, Vice-President, and 
Messrs. Wm. E. McLean, John G. Davidson, and J. H. Rhodes, Secre- 
taries, of the National Convention of the Liberal Republicans of the United 
States. 



The Democratic Couventiou which assembled at 
Baltimore July 9, 1872, adopted the address and plat- 
form of the Cincinnati Convention, and nominated 
Horace Greeley as their candidate for president; and 
he accepted their nomination. 



LETTER OF ACCEPTAKCE. 305 

An able writer has the following upon Mr. Greeley's 
letter accepting his nomination by the Cincinnati Con- 
vention : — 

"No matter what Mr. Greeley may have written 
or spoken in times past to excite opposition : his letter 
accepting the Cincinnati nomination is as admirable 
and complete a statement of the principles of liberal- 
ism, and of the sentiments of a large majority of the 
American people, as could be expressed upon paper 
by any candidate yet to be presented. It is a pointed 
and forcible summary that he makes of the Liberal 
Republicans, and is equivalent to a restatement of 
the platform in the tersest and most striking form 
possible. No one whose heart is set on reform can 
take exception to a syllable of it. It is not to be 
denied that the party which hopes to achieve victory 
in the coming canvass must plant itself fixedly on tliat 
identical platform. Mr. Greeley happily describes it 
as ' casting behind it the wreck and rubbish of worn- 
out contentions and bygone feuds,' which are become 
the greatest obstructions to the restoration of fraternal 
feelings, and unity of sentiment, between the sections. 
The candidate of the Cincinnati Convention employs 
his usual vigorous expressions in characterizing the 
administration and its supporters, mincing no words, 
and withholding no positive opinions. The same 
slashing use of the English language appears in his 

26* 



306 LIFE OF HORACE GREELEY. 

letter of acceptance which would show in a leader or 
a speech. He aims his battery of expletives at ^ the 
drill-sergeants of decaying organizations,' who, he 
declares, are ' flourishing their truncheons ' as if they 
expected to frighten people into obedience. His spirit 
is high : his hopes have not a wing clipped. He is 
resolved, if fortune shall favor, to be ' the president, 
not of a party, but of the whole people.' 

" The effect of this letter upon the section of the 
Republican party which uttered its notable protest at 
Cincinnati is yet to be observed. As it was addressed 
to them alone, it will be particularly interesting to 
discover how it affects them. They cannot consist- 
ently disavow any part of its spirit, whatever may be 
their impression respecting its form. Its author 
comes up squarely to the standard of reform which 
was adopted at Chiciunati : no man could have 
answered to it more exactly. He is guilty of no 
exaggeration when he states that a large majority of 
the people assent to the propositions which he a 
second time enunciates with increased force, and 
when, too, he adds that they adopt them as the basis 
of ' a true, beneficent reconstruction,' and of ' a new 
departure from jealousies, strifes, and hates, which 
have no longer adequate motive or even plausible 
pretext, into an atmosphere of peace, fraternity, and 
mutual good-will.' " 




J.Wwyerat.' ii.:-, ■. -<-: c jKBosio 



HeWoE^.eMAT^ BMOl^rW, 



lastan.B.B.Ttussell, 



SKETCH OF THE LIFE 



B. GRATZ BROWN. 



rr^HE same convention nominated Hon. B. Gratz 
-*- Brown, now governor of Missouri, for vice-presi- 
dent. 

We give the following brief sketch of the life and 
services of Gov. Brown : — 

" The nomination of Gov. Brown of Missouri for 
vice-president by the Cincinnati Convention would 
- have been a fine stroke of policy, had it not been one 
of those happy hits which seem to occur by the 
natural fitness of things, or to spring out of the air. 
A native of Kentucky, a grandson of a distinguished 
senator, born at Lexington in 1826, educated at 
Transylvania University and Yale College, he studied 
law at Louisville, but settled^ in St. Louis, and was a 
member of the State legislature from 1852 to 1859. 
He was one of the originators of ' The Missouri 
Democrat,' which he edited five years. While a boy, 
he conceived a deep repugnance to slavery, though he 

307 



308 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

belonged to a slaveholding family ; and, while in the 
Missouri legislature, made a powerful antislaverj 
speech, which was the initial step of freedom in that 
great State. At the outbreak of the war he raised a 
regiment, and afterwards commanded a brigade, and 
took the foremost part in organizing the movement 
which made Missouri free. 

'' Elected to the. Senate in 1863, he served on im- 
portant committees, and made an honorable record. 
In 1870 he was nominated for governor by an upris- 
ing of the people against the dictation and interfer- 
ence of the administration ; and his name roused 
the enthusiasm of the people to the highest pitch, and 
he was elected by an overwhelming majority. His 
administration has been as lionorable as it is popular, 
and he is to-day the admiration and the idol of 
Missouri. A clear-headed, acute, energetic man, alive 
to the very finger-tips, with a fine presence, a winning 
address, and a power of attaching friends and awa- 
kening enthusiasm greater than even Fremont pos- 
sessed, he is the natural leader and the fittest 
representative of the young life and heroic hopeful- 
ness and energy of the Great West. His nomination 
was fortunate for the reform movement, which he has 
done more than almost any other to inaugurate ; and 
his election will be still more fortunate for the 
country." 



B. GRATZ BROWN. 309 

He retired from the Senate of the United States 
in 1867, and declined a re-election. He was the first 
to protest against the proscriptive constitution in 
Missouri ; and was nominated for governor by the 
Liberal Republicans in 1870, and elected by forty 
thousand majority, after a bitter contest. He is forty- 
six years old, stout in stature, an able writer, and 
one of the most original thinkers in the West. 

A gentleman who lately saw Gov. Brown says, 
" The candidate for Vice-President of the United 
States has a striking appearance. He is tall, broad- 
shouldered, has a fine figure, and a head which at once 
indicates the student and thinker : it is large and well 
shaped. The features are clear cut ; the expression 
of the face is keen and shrewd ; the eyes are bold and 
frank ; and the whole appearance of the man is re- 
markable. His forehead is high. His hair, which is 
of a dark red color, falls smoothly over his neck : it 
curls naturally. The color is a strange one : it is not 
the ordinary red, and it is not auburn ; but it has 
a color of its own, — a smooth, soft red, which, with 
the mass of his hair, gives the head an appearance 
which is perfectly unique. The beard is long, full, 
and of a decided red. The face looks manly, bold ; 
the eye has a quick, decided look. The man impresses 
you at a glance as a man of mind, of nerve, of char- 
acter." 



310 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

"We have selected the above testimony from two 
gentlemen who know Gov. Brown well, and who, we 
believe, are perfectly reliable. He was also nomi- 
nated by the Baltimore Convention for vice-president. 
The following is his letter of acceptance to the com- 
mittee of the Cincinnati Convention : — 



Executive Office, Jefferson City, May 21, 1872. 

Gentlemen, — Your letter advising me of the action of the Lib- 
eral Republican Convention at Cincinnati has been received; and I 
return throuj^h you my acknov^^ledgment of the honor which has been 
conferred upon me. I accept the nomination as a candidate for vice- 
president, and indorse most cordially the resolutions setting forth the 
principles upon which the appeal is made to the whole people of the 
United States. A century is closing upon our experience of republican 
government; and while that lapse of time has witnessed a great expan- 
sion of our free institutions, yet it has not been without instruction also 
of grave dangers to the stability of such a system. Of those success- 
fully encountered it is needless to speak ; of those which remain to 
menace us, the most threatening are provided against, as I firmly be- 
lieve, in the wise and pacific measures proposed by your platform. It 
has come to be the practice of those elevated to positions of national 
authority to regard public service but as a means to retain power. This 
results in substituting a mere party organization for the government 
itself, constitutes a control amenable to no laws or moralities, impairs 
all independent thought, enables a few to rule the many, and makes 
personal allegiance the road to favor. It requires little forecast to per- 
ceive that this will wreck all liberties, unless there be interposed a time- 
ly reform of the administration, from its highest to its lowest station, 
which shall not only prevent abuses, but likewise take away the incen- 
tive to their practice. Wearied with the contentions that are carried on 
in avarice of spoils, the country commands repose, and resents the effort 
of officials to drag it again into partisan hostilities. I will zealously 
sustain any movement promising a sure deliverance of the perils which 
have been connected with the war. It is safe to say that only those are 
now to be feared which come of an abuse of victory into permanent 
estrangement. The Union is fortified by more power than ever before. 



B. GRATZ BROWN. 311 

and it remains as an imperative duty to cement our nationality by a 
perfect reconciliation. At the North, widespread sympathy is aroused 
in behalf of those States of the South, which, long after the termina- 
tion of resistance to the rightful federal authority, are still plundered 
under the guise of loyalty, and tyrannized over in the name of freedom. 
Along with this feeling is present, too, the recognition, that in complete 
amnesty alone can be found hope of any return to constitutional gov- 
ernment as of old, or any development of a more enduring unity and 
broader national life in the future. Amnesty, however, to be eflSca- 
cious, must be real, not nominal ; genuine, not evasive. It must carry 
along with it equal rights as well as equal protection to all ; for the 
removal of disabilities as to some, with enforcements as to others, leaves 
room for suspicions that pardon is measured by political gain. Espe- 
cially will such professed clemency be futile in the presence of the renewed 
attempt at prolonging a suspension of the habeas corpus, and the persist- 
ent resort to martial rather than civil law in upholding those agencies 
used to alienate the races when concord is most essential ; and, in pre- 
paring another elaborate campaign on a basis of dead issues and arbi- 
trary intervention, all will rightly credit such conduct as but a mockery 
of amnesty, and demand an administration which can give better war- 
rant of honesty in the great work of reconstruction and reform. In 
the array of sectional interests, a republic so widespread as ours is 
never entirely safe from serious conflicts. These become still more 
dangerous when complicated in the question of taxation, where unequal 
burdens are believed to be imposed by one party at the expense of an- 
other party. It was a bold as well as admirable policy in the interest 
of present as well as future tranquillity to withdraw the decision of in- 
dustrial and revenue matters from the virtual arbitration of an electoral 
college chosen with the single animating purpose of checking a party's 
ascendency, and refer them for a more direct popular expression to each 
congressional district. Instead of being muzzled by some evasive 
declaration, the country is therefore invited to its frankest utterance ; 
and sections which would revolt at being denied a voice, out of defer- 
ence to other sections, would be content to acquiesce in a general judg- 
ment. If local government be, as it is undoubtedly, the most vital 
principle of our institutions, much advance will be made towards estab- 
lishing it by enabling the people to pass upon questions so nearly 
affecting their well-being dispassionately through their local representa- 
tion. The precipitance which would force a controlling declaration on 
tax or tariff through a presidential candidacy is only a disguised form 
of centralization, involving hazardous reaches of executive influence. 



812 SKETCH OF B. GRATZ BROWN. 

A conclusion will be much more impartially determined, and with less 
disturbance to trade and finance, by appealing to the most truthful and 
diversified local expression. Industrial issues can be likewise emanci- 
pated from the power of great monopolies, and each representative held 
to fidelity toward his immediate constituents. These are the most 
prominent features of that general concert of action which proposes to 
replace the present administration by one more in sympathy with the 
aspirations of the masses of our countrymen. Of course, such concert 
cannot be attained by thrusting every minor or past difference into the 
foreground; and it will be for the people, therefore, to determine 
whether these objects are of such magnitude and present urgency as to 
justify them in deferring other adjustments until the country shall be 
first restored to a free suffrage uninfluenced by ofiicial dictation, and 
ours becomes, in fact, a free republic, released from apprehensions of a 
central domination. Without referring in detail to the various other 
propositions embraced in the resolutions of the convention, but seeing 
how they all contemplate a restoration of power to the people, peace to 
the nation, purity to the government, that they condemn the attempt 
to establish an ascendency of military over civil rule, and affirm with 
explicitness the maintenance of equal freedom to all citizens, irrespec- 
tive of race, previous condition, or pending disabilities, I have only to 
pledge again my cordial co-operation. 

I have the honor to remain 

Very respectfully yours, 

B. Gratz Brown. 

Hon. Carl Schurz, President, Hon. George W. Julian, Vice-President, and 
Messrs. William E. McLean, John G. Davidson, and J. H. Rhodes, Secre- 
taries, of the National Convention of the Liberal Republicans of the United 

States. 



''/ 



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